Manifest Destiny
by vault of glass
Summary: Leah and Charon land in the Mojave. The heroes meet heat, history, and a snarky prick of a Courier who certainly won't make things any easier - without a price, that is. Part three of the "Hired Help" series.
1. Prologue, Dream On

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Ecclesiastes 9:10

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><p>It was just another day in the Mojave desert. Hot. Humid. Full of dissatisfaction, concupiscence, desire, and sin. The way everyone had come to expect it, and, in many ways, come to need it. It was dirty and it went against your morals and sometimes it even threatened to take your life, but you <em>liked<em> it. Hell, you came back for more. Silly, gullible you.

But the Mojave had that effect on people. On everyone who trailed over its scorching sands, everyone who lost a few hundred at the blackjack tables, every man who was seated and sweating at a table in Gomorrah and every woman who shed her skin on stage for a few more caps she'd end up losing back at the tables anyways, everyone who slept under a blue moon and dreamt of red and numbers and hearts. Even the Courier, strong as he was, hotheaded, tenacious, independent, even _he_ answered the Mojave's call to play, to bite, to drink, to sin. If by some sick twist in fate you too ended up on the west coast of the Wasteland, then that was your destiny.

The Mojave made no apologies. The Mojave did not take "no" for an answer. It bent over for no one. It got under your skin, into your blood and your bones, and made you its bitch. It had its way with everyone who had stumbled into its hot, unforgiving embrace, ruled with an iron fist, kicked ass, took names, and always, _always_, came out on top. The Mojave did not change.

Well . . . until now.

For the Lone Wanderer and her group of resolute, voracious fighters had touched ground on desert sand, and the Mojave knew this. The Mojave grew red with fury, the Mojave trembled in its rawhide boots. The Lone Wanderer had been _born_ to change and to change things. It was _her_ destiny, _her_ lot in life, and any and everyone who stood in her pathway would get caught up in her storm, thrown to and fro, _made_ to give in, to acquiesce, had the morals and ethics _shaken_ into them, and walked away with a brand new heart, a brand new hope, and a stumble in their step.

She was the Mojave's worst nightmare . . . and she was here to stay.

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><p>Manifest Destiny: the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the North American continent, <em>from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean<em>.


	2. Devil's Got a New Disguise

Beatrice Naomi Lamont had never seen anything like what she was seeing now. Her widened, chocolate brown eyes glittered with the reflection of flashing neon lights from the city below, her pale hands pressed against the window. She'd heard one of her older brothers talk about God before; he had gotten hold of an old copy of the Bible and had done his best to be a devout Christian ever since. She'd always thought it was a little silly, but as his baby sister she supported him as best she could. She hadn't believed in any of it, not in this hell of a world – but now, seeing all of the bursts of color and lights below, she would have been blind to _not_ recognize the sight as a blessing, a miracle.

"Bumble."

The girl looked up, her mouth still agape in fascination and wonder. The pilot of their vertibird laughed and Bumble loved the sound. It was sweet and lovely and natural; it made you think you could conquer the world. The woman that was for all intents and purposes her mother gestured her up to the cockpit. Bumble climbed over the sleeping bodies of the other passengers – a little clumsily, but the cramped conditions didn't exactly make it easy – and flopped eagerly down onto the seat that had just been cleared for her, propping her little feet up onto the bag in front of her. Her fingers were trembling, and she tried to stifle her visible excitement by lacing them in her lap.

Leah grinned down at her with glinting white teeth, not bothering to try to hide her enthusiasm. "You like the lights?"

Bumble's lips stretched into an identical smile – one she'd picked up over time, one the pilot was _proud_ to see on her face. "I love the lights."

"That was New Vegas, baby. I can't freaking wait – I can't wait to see all of it. Oh, God, I can't wait to watch your _father_ see all of it! I can't imagine it – that stuffy old ghoul in the middle of all this glamour."

Bumble couldn't reply – she was laughing too hard, her hand clamped over her mouth in attempt to keep her giggles from waking the others.

"No, wait," Leah went on with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "I _can_ see it. Something tells me he'd look _amazing_ in one of those fancy suits. Remind me to take him gambling. I bet any dealer in New Vegas would shit his pants in fear and deal us the best hands. Now I just have to learn how to gamble. I'm kind of embarrassed to say I have no idea how." She shot her honorary daughter a sheepish glance. "Hey, you should convince your father to teach me – he'd give me shit if I asked him."

The dark-haired girl's cheeks were red with mirth. "I'll ask him. Promise."

"Atta girl. Go wake the others up. We're just about to descend."

"We're there?"

"Nearly."

"Sure thing, Leah!" Bumble clambered out of the cockpit all too eagerly.

"And be nice when you wake them up!" Leah snapped shrewdly after her, "I couldn't stand another second of Lucy's bitching that you splashed water in her face to wake her up again!" She smiled when Bumble moaned in disappointment and did as she was told. The girl was going somewhere in life, that was for sure; armed to the teeth with all she had learned from Charon and Leah, with an assault rifle in hand, a knack for picking locks and the insatiable curiosity to know what was _behind_ those locks, Bumble was going to be a force to fucking reckon with and Leah could not be any prouder. She thumbed the comm. button, cleared her throat, and pulled on the stereotypical drawl of an aircraft pilot. "This iiiiiis Niner-Niner-101 calling for back-up, I repeat, Niner-Niner-101 reeequesting back-up in my location, do you read me?"

She got an immediate response, fuzzy with static, but very clearly laced with irritation nonetheless: "What the fuck do you want, Leah?"

Her lips pulled up into a smirk. "Aww, big bad ghoul doesn't want to play pilot with me?"

"God damn it, Leah. I don't even think you're doing it right."

"Then teach me."

A growl this time, clearly unamused. "_Leah_."

"Spoilsport. You were gonna be Captain Bouncer McGrumpyGills." Before he could threaten her life, she continued with, "We're there. I'm starting my descent."

"And I shall follow," he promised solemnly.

She couldn't help but smile. "Niner-Niner-101 out."

The comm. connection ended with a rather curt beep and she laughed as she pulled out the landing gear. He could be such a party pooper sometimes. Bumble joined her in the passenger seat once more, having woken everyone up. The rest of her passengers were all grumbling angrily and holding on to steady themselves as the vertibird began to descend. Fawkes and Bumble seemed to be the only ones excited with the new experience. Leah could hear his raucous laughter echoing against all the metal.

"Weapons stashed, people!" Leah called at them as she peered through the foggy glass of the window at the small town she was landing them in. The last thing she wanted to do was frighten a bunch of small-town innocents into running for the hills. "Do your best to look unscary! Until we can warn them, Fawkes, I'm gonna need you to stay inside. Sorry, buddy."

"It is quite all right, friend Leah," the mutant assured her mildly. "In all things –,"

"A calm heart must prevail," everyone else in the vertibird quoted in unison. Leah burst into laughter as Fawkes smiled in surprise.

"I am glad you have all taken to Zen teachings! It can lead the pathway to inner peace!"

"Well, let's pray for _outer_ peace with this little town," Leah encouraged. "Grab onto something!" The vertibird hit the ground harder than she'd wanted and they were all thrown into the walls and against each other. "Everyone all right?" she asked shakily as she flipped the switch to kill the engine. The quiet seemed deafening after the constant beating of the propellers and thrum of the engine. The passengers all mumbled various statements of wellbeing in response to her question.

The vertibird door was jerked open and they all squinted dizzily at the huge ghoul standing above them.

"You're a great shot, smoothskin," his raspy voice rumbled through a smirk, "but your piloting could use some work."

"Fuck you," Leah groaned as a reply, "everybody out. I might puke, so I'd recommend hurrying."

Her passengers all scrambled over one another to get out as soon as possible, some of them hitting the dirt on their stomachs or backs as they were shoved from the vertibird. Leah stepped out and smiled brightly up at her fiancé. "How was _your_ flight?"

". . . I may have strangled one or two of your children."

"Ha! You mean _your_ children. I'm not hardly old enough to have given birth to _Bumble_, let alone RJ."

"_You_ adopted them, _your_ responsibility. I'm sterile. They're yours."

"Let's continue this argument later." She whirled around and patted her poor, cramped mutant's knee. "I'll get you out of there. Lemme just warn the townspeople first, okay?"

"Take your time," Fawkes grunted good-naturedly back.

"Jesus, it's hot for the middle of the night," Nova bitched, fanning her face with her hand.

"I'm getting baked out here," Princess agreed as she picked a strand of red hair from her sweating skin.

"One more person complain and I'll add a broken bone to your problems," Leah threatened coldly. They all fell silent. "Good. Everybody ready? Weapons away, happy faces on. Look welcoming, friendly. All right. Let's go." She put one arm around Charon's waist and the other around Bumble's shoulders and turned for the town. They'd landed just behind what looked like a saloon – "Some things are the same, east coast or west, big town or small," Gob had remarked dryly – and they cautiously rounded the corner.

A few sleepy locals were standing near a fire, clothed in their pajamas and rubbing their eyes. Others were appearing from behind front doors, peering out curiously at what the noise was all about.

"Can I help you?" an older man asked, rubbing at his receding hairline. "We don't got a lot to steal here at Goodsprings, and we're good people, so you'd best just take what you want and leave. No one has to get hurt."

Leah put a hand up to stop him. "We're not here to hurt, or to steal, or to kill, or whatever. My name is Leah Rose Montgomery and this is my family. I'm here to learn a little bit about my father, and to find the Brotherhood of Steel."

The old man seemed completely floored, his jaw dropping, but a woman beside him squinted distrustfully at them. "Nobody heard of the Brotherhood of Steel for years now. You won't find 'em here. You'd better leave now."

"Quiet, Trudy," the man shushed her sternly. He touched the end of his mustache thoughtfully, as if dithering over something, before he seemed compelled to ask, "Your father – was he –?"

"James Montgomery," she confirmed with a smile. "Would that make you Mitchell?"

He smiled right back at her. "Most just call me Doc, but any relative of James' can call me whatever the hell they want." He looked around at the other townsfolk, who were watching him expectantly, waiting for a verdict. "Y'all can head back to bed now. These people mean us no harm."

There were grumbles of hesitance and mistrust, but the others obeyed and wandered back into their homes.

"Come on into my home," Mitchell invited, still a bit shaken with wonder, gesturing openly over his shoulder. "We'll talk there, out of the heat. Sometimes the cazadores come down at night from the mountains and that's the last thing we want." He chuckled a little to himself.

Leah laughed along, shooting Charon a questioning glance once the old man had turned around.

He shrugged. "Did your father mention them?"

"Not once. I haven't finished with the tapes, though. Oh, shit! Fawkes! Hey, Doc?"

Mitchell half-turned, a brow arched. "Yeah?"

"I have a super mutant with me. He's completely friendly. In fact, some of my youngest kids here are more ruthless than him. But I kept him hidden away so I didn't scare the poop out of you guys when we showed up. Do you mind if he comes along?"

Mitchell hesitated, but then his expression turned determined, as if a memory flashed through his mind, and he declared proudly, "After all your father did for me, it's the least I could do. Bring him along."

"Thank you so much. Bumble, RJ, go get Fawkes," she ordered briskly. They immediately detached from the group and headed back for the vertibird, hands ready to reach for their weapons just in case. Bumble was more than capable of defending herself, but this was foreign territory, and Leah wouldn't trust her to go alone. The rest of them climbed the slight incline to the lit porch of Mitchell's house, where he held the door open for them. There was a collective sigh of relief as they stepped into the cool room, shielded from the night heat.

"Find a seat. Er, I may not have enough for all of you, though. . . ." he realized with a twitch of his brows.

"Don't worry. We've been cooped up in those things for _hours_. I'm pretty sure a few of us wouldn't be bothered stretching our legs," Leah assured him warmly.

"I'll brew some coffee . . . and then I'll brew some more," Mitchell chuckled thoughtfully. "Make yourselves at home." He drifted into the other room. The door opened and Bumble and RJ strolled in, followed by Fawkes, who ducked carefully through the doorway.

"It is amazing that people trust you enough not to attack me," he observed with a pensive nod.

"It really is," Gob agreed. "Charon and me, too. A lotta smoothskins have never seen ghouls. How do they trust you enough not to just kill us on sight?"

Leah smiled. "Not all of 'em do. The ones that _don't _get broken noses. Remember Bannon, love?"

He snorted, leaning back against a wall, arms crossed, classic Charon. "I will never forget. That is the first time I realized that I'd had no idea what I was in for. I should have just turned around and walked away."

"But you stayed."

"I did. Stupid me."

"And stupid me for letting you."

Doc Mitchell swung back into his living room, a tray resting on his arms with mugs and a pitcher of coffee. He set it down onto the table and started filling mugs. "I can't believe it's really you. Cat always wanted a daughter. I'm glad she got one." He eased himself into an old, tattered chair with a reminiscent smile. "Your father would've bent over backwards for her."

Leah touched her cheek, feeling moisture there. She smiled sadly. _Crying already_. Her legs were shaking and she lowered into a chair across from him. Charon stood behind her, his hands warm on her shoulders. _I'm here for you._

"Yeah, he lived in Vault 21 with me. Took care of my clinic. He's a man smarter than me, that's for certain. Sure, I taught him all I knew, but he wanted to know more, and he always spent his time _learning_ more. Great kid, though I suppose he's not a kid anymore." He appealed to Leah with a dry laugh.

"No," she agreed quietly. "Both of my parents are dead now."

Mitchell's expression froze on his face. "No. You've gotta be kiddin' me. They were both so . . . so young, so alive. I can't believe it."

"My mother passed in childbirth, and my father died a few years ago, to protect Project Purity."

"The water purifier," Mitchell identified with shock, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that your old man was behind that. It would've taken a special kind of guy to get that up and working."

"It would have, and it did. He died with honor, just like he lived. I couldn't have asked for anything better."

Mitchell hesitated, before asking, "How?"

"Murdered."

"And his murderer?"

"Beaten to death by yours truly."

"Good," he commented with relish. "James was . . . well, I guess you could say he was like a son to me, though that makes me feel a little old," he admitted. "I'm glad to meet you, Leah. And the rest of your family. Glad someone can carry on the Montgomery name. I've heard stories about a hero from the Vault on the east coast. I had no idea it was James' daughter all along. Again, I shouldn't be surprised." He shrugged. "But enough reminiscing for tonight. It's late. You're free to stay here until the morning if you can all find a bit of floor to lie on. I'll see you in the morning, folks." With a bow of his head, he got slowly to his feet.

"Thank you, Mitchell," Leah murmured. "For everything."

"Sure thing, kid. Least I could do." He turned on his heel and went down the hall into his bedroom.

Everyone was looking at Leah. She smiled at them all and shrugged. "If he says we can sleep wherever, then we'll sleep wherever. Be respectful, don't touch anything. Find a comfy surface and settle down for the night. I'll wake you all in the morning."

Her family all rumbled affirmatives and stretched out on couches, medical cots, and sections of the wooden floor. Charon plopped down into a chair beside Leah and patted his thigh. She smiled and slinked over, sprawling herself across his lap. "It's nice to finally settle. To finally be here."

"For now, at least. We still have no idea what we're getting in to."

"You're such a downer."

He chuckled. She tucked her face against his shoulder, fingertip tapping his collarbone. "I love you."

"Love you, too, smoothskin. Sleep for now. We'll worry about the overwhelming and strange position we're in when we wake up in the morning."

"If _that _doesn't sound familiar," she yawned. "Deal."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Benny!"<p>

"How ya doin', Swanky? How's our baby doin' tonight?"

"We're up a few thousand caps on income from last month. The Tops is rakin' it in. She's doing fantastic!"

"Yeah, she's platinum," Benny agreed, distracted as a local strolled by in a sleek, black dress, shining reflections of the lights in all the right places, accentuating her curves. "You hold us down, Swanky, I got places to be."

"I can see that, Benny," Swank hinted with a smirk. "You do your thing, I'll do mine."

"Fantastic." He tapped the counter with his knuckles before trailing off after the beautiful woman, who had sent him an eyelash-fluttering glance over her shoulder. He fell into step beside her and slung an arm over her shoulders. "Hey, baby doll, you got the body of an angel. You feel like joining a chairman in his room tonight?"

"Maybe," she replied in a silky, sultry voice. Red lips twisted into a smile. "Where should I meet you?"

"Thirteenth floor, pussycat, third door on the left. Don't make me wait." He winked at her and pulled away, tugging at the collar of his coat as he climbed the steps toward the Aces.

The beautiful woman sashayed over toward a dark corner, where a man in a night-black suit with darker hair and a cigarette in his mouth was waiting for her. He held a hand out as she approached and she took it, allowing him to draw her close, against his chest.

"How are we doing, sweetheart?" he asked in that husky, delicious voice of his, trailing the touch of his lips over the crook of her neck. "You get his room number?"

"Thirteenth floor," she answered, inhaling shakily as he played her desire like the professional he was, "third door on the left."

"Mmmn, you did great, just great. But you're not going to the thirteenth floor, third door on the left tonight, are you?"

She smiled. "No, baby, I'm coming to you."

He chuckled, her favorite sound in the world. "That's right. I'll see you there." He pulled out his cigarette and slid it between her lips, pecking her just beside her mouth, and pulling away. "Thank you. I have some things to take care of. Here's a few caps. Go gamble the night away."

"Thank you," she sang as he handed her a bag of caps. "See you tonight."

He nodded and stalked off, his broad hands stuffed into the pockets of his perfectly pressed suit. The warm, summer rain of the Mojave greeted him when he stepped outside and he greeted it back with a smile.

* * *

><p>Francine Garret ran the back of her hand over her forehead, not surprised to find the moisture of sweat there. She'd done her best to keep her cool, but it wasn't every day that such a smooth talking ghoul came at her with his full charm. Jesus Christ, the man was attractive.<p>

He was leaning over the counter now, a smirk on his lips, tugging at her heartstrings – and her desire. His suit was perfectly tailored to his broad shoulders, and those cold eyes glinted appealingly at her through his glasses and that was all it took to get her talking. Once she'd started, she couldn't stop. The Courier would be pissed at how much information she was spouting off to this perfect stranger, but the Courier didn't matter anymore. She told him everything the Courier had done for the Atomic Wrangler, everything she knew about his past – which, admittedly wasn't much; no one really knew about _that_ – everyone she knew who'd met him, and where the ghoul could find him now. His eyes flared almost imperceptibly when she mentioned he'd made it into the Lucky 38, and that was the only hint of emotion she got from him.

The stranger smiled at her, and even that expression appeared wicked. Wicked suited him well. He thanked her, shot her a devilish glance, and then disappeared from her door.

It was the last time Francine ever saw Desmond Lockheart.

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><p>"Here for the Brotherhood, eh? You just get more and more interesting, don't you, kid?" Mitchell cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs and templing his hands on his knee. "I know a person might be able to find 'em. He was a courier. Sounds simple, but he got big and political. I heard about him on the radio. Mr. New Vegas has taken a liking to the kid. He passed through here a few months ago. Got ambushed by a chairman and a few Khans, popped a couple of bullets in his head. The town robot Victor found him and I nursed him back to health. Now he's off in New Vegas somewhere, manipulating the people there like puppets on a string. He used to boast that he could find anyone, anywhere. Cocky son of a gun, but I got the feeling he meant it. He makes you feel like you <em>want<em> to help him, like his way is the _right_ way. Odd, but that's how he is. Name's Sinclair, never got a first name. He promised me he was headed to New Vegas, after the chairman that shot him. I'd look for him there."

"And the chairmen are from the Tops," Leah said tentatively, flipping through her notebook.

"Correct. And the Khans –,"

"Stick to Red Rock Canyon." Leah was on her Pip-Boy now, flipping through the maps.

"You got it. You did your research, I see. James' daughter indeed. Look, you want to know more about him, you ask Victor and Sunny Smiles. The robot dug him up and Sunny . . . well, he spent the night with her right before he was attacked. You can find her in the saloon. She'll be able to give you more on his personality."

"Thanks, Doc." Leah gave him a tight hug and kissed him on the cheek. "You've been a great help."

"Don't be a stranger. And go do your dad proud."

They bid each other farewell and the family tromped down the hill toward the main town. The robot was just rolling past when they hit the main road.

"Excuse me," Leah called, running up to him. "Are you Victor?"

The faceplate of the robot had a picture of an old-fashioned cowboy, rawhide hat and all. His screen lit up as he spoke, "Howdy there! I sure am and it's nice to meetcha. Can I help you with somethin'?"

"I'm looking for the courier you dug up – Sinclair?"

"Oh, that old friend of mine! Sure, I found him covered in dirt up at the cemetery. He was half dead, but still breathin' so I carried him to Doc's. Took the good old doctor a month or so to bring him back, but he did it. Doc's a genius, he is."

"Is there anything else you can tell me about him?" Leah asked, getting impatient.

"I transferred over to one of my Securitron brothers on the Strip and Mr. House had me invite him to the Lucky 38 as soon as he showed up there. He's the first person to enter that place in . . . well, I can't remember anyone else ever goin' in!"

"Lucky 38," Leah muttered, flipping through her notes, "Mr. House. The self-proclaimed leader of New Vegas, actor, hotel and casino owner, big, big star . . . right. Okay. Thank you, Victor, that's important information."

"Sure thing, little lady."

"Come on, let's go see Sunny."

They found Sunny Smiles and her dog Cheyenne in the dining section of the saloon. The girl was one of the most beautiful women Leah had ever seen – and she'd spent nights with women like Nova and Amata.

"Heard you're asking about the courier," Sunny greeted them suspiciously.

"Word travels fast," Charon observed.

She smiled. "Small town. Not too much I can tell you about him aside from his bedroom habits." She snorted dismissively. "He's an interesting man. Dark hair, blue eyes . . . looks kinda like you," she said of Leah, "built real nice. Smooth-talker. I'm not one to let my emotions get the better of me, but he'd talked me into a night with him like he was born to do it. Snuck off in the middle of the night, too, the snake. Not like I was gonna ask him to make me an honest woman, but I guess he doesn't like to take chances anyways. He's real cautious, so be careful not to scare him off. If he wants to disappear . . . he will."

Leah and Charon exchanged a glance.

Sunny's brow furrowed. "Some ghoul came around asking for him a while back. Seemed real determined to find him, so you got some competition. If you really need to find him, I'd hurry. He doesn't like to stay in one place for too long . . . my bed included."

Peter smirked at that. "If you need someone else to fill his place –,"

Charon smacked the back of his head as Sunny arched a brow. "Pardon my son," the ghoul growled.

"No harm done. No offense, little boy, but you couldn't handle five minutes with this – let alone a whole night."

Everyone laughed as Peter turned bright red.

"Thanks for the information, Ms. Smiles," Leah chuckled, "but it sounds like we should be on our way."

"Best of luck to you," she offered them with a smirk, "finding him's only half the trouble."

With that ominous advice in her head, Leah ushered her family into the vertibirds and in mere moments they were up in the air and off for New Vegas. This slippery courier was the only chance she had of finding the Brotherhood of Steel, and she'd be damned if she let him get away.

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><p><strong>Thank you, GDMcat, for the wonderful review! It was extremely flattering, one of the sweetest things anyone's ever said to me. Thank you :)<strong>


	3. The Man with the Golden Arm

Desmond Lockheart had to admit, Robert House did well for himself. He'd always had a certain charm that Desmond lacked. He could sway even the most hardened, tight-fisted motherfuckers into investing every last dime they had in him and his philanthropic lifestyle. He'd grown paranoid over the years; the thousands of Securitron robots made that clear. It had made it difficult for Desmond to travel through the Mojave without being seen, but nothing could stop him from getting where he needed to be.

Robert House was a heavy-handed, ambitious little dog; always had been, always would be, and it was Desmond's job to put the beast down. To do that, he needed the Courier.

He angled his hat down over his face and emerged from the shadows, striding quickly through the crowds of people on the Strip back towards the Tops.

* * *

><p>Orris passed the box of cigarettes to his fellow bodyguards-for-hire, lighting his own behind his cupped hand to keep the gusty Freeside wind from killing the flame of his dented metal lighter. "Shit day," he remarked, exhaling smoke.<p>

"You can say that again," the man on his left said with a snort of impatience. "I haven't had one buyer yet. You, Marky?"

"Only one, Frank," Marky sighed disappointedly.

Orris stroked his beard thoughtfully until the sound of approaching footsteps roused him from his reverie. He smacked Marky's shoulder with a hopeful smile. "Someone comin' this way."

The doors of the old, blue train were thrown open and the loveliest woman any of them had ever seen stepped through in armor that none of them could ever dream to be able to afford, a beast of a .44 magnum hanging from her side, shining black hair tamed into a ponytail. Electric blue eyes scanned her surroundings and eventually fell on them. Her pink lips pursed wistfully.

Orris smirked. "You need some help, sugar? You look a little lost, baby doll."

"What are you doin' in all that armor, darlin'?" Frank teased with a raucous bark of laughter. "Gonna pull a heist? You stick out like a sore thumb."

"Why don't you let one of us take care of you, hon?" Marky suggested with what he clearly intended to be a seductive voice, leering lustily at her.

The woman's blue eyes flared with shock, then narrowed with indignation. She took a step toward them, hand twitching for her gun, and then the doors were knocked open behind her again and they all turned to see a ghoul the size of a tank storm through with murder in his eyes.

The ghoul moved toward them with long, intent strides, just as formidable and inevitable as an earthquake. The woman put a hand out against his chest to stop him as he made to pass her. His eyes narrowed into a glare and his fists clenched at his sides, a terrifying growl trembling in his throat.

"Let me," the woman sang in a beautiful, silvery voice. She sent him a pointed look and, extremely reluctantly, he backed down. She smirked and sauntered forward toward the three men, blue eyes flickering from one to the next. "Which one of you brave, brave men thinks they could take care of _me_?"

Marky and Frank exchanged a look behind Orris' back. The girl was a babe, but neither one of them wanted to chance the wrath of that behemoth of a ghoul. They stepped away.

But Orris held his ground with a smile. He blew out smoke toward the girl, arrogant, cocky. "I can, sugar."

She moved so quickly that none of them could keep up. One of her hands hooked a strap of his armor, tugging his chest forward while she caught the back of his knees with a swipe of her legs, landing him flat on his ass. Her hand moved to keep his head in place as she wound up and hit him smack in the middle of the face, hard enough to break his nose.

The ghoul was too furious to hold back and marched forward, grabbing Marky and Frank by their armor and lifting them straight up off the ground. He smashed them together, their heads knocking against each other, and dropped their unconscious bodies unceremoniously to the ground.

The woman was not through with Orris. "Stay awake!" she barked, that sweet voice twisted into a snarl, her lovely face burning with fury. She slapped him across the face and he whimpered as he struggled to look up at her. "You are pathetic," she informed him coldly, "you are a radroach beneath my boots. You mean nothing. You are the most insignificant, revolting piece of shit I've ever had the misfortune of coming across, and if I catch you even _looking_ at me or my family ever again, if you even _think_ one more disgusting thought, _I will fucking end you_." She swiped out her .44 magnum and pistol-whipped him, effectively throwing him into unconsciousness. Leah shoved herself away from the unconscious man and rolled her shoulders in an attempt to stifle the overwhelming rage that had taken over her.

Charon still looked furious. He cupped her face with a big hand and lowered his face to kiss her, his lips hard with anger.

"It's okay, love," she sighed against his lips. "They won't be messing with us again."

Charon nodded, looking up at their surroundings. "What is this place called?"

"Freeside. My dad described it as 'the shithole of the Mojave.' Guess he wasn't kidding."

"Will the children be all right at that motel?" he asked uncertainly.

"They've got Gob, Nova, _and_ Fawkes to take care of them, which they don't even really need in the first place," she assured him, "plus, we cleared out the junkies and scorpions ourselves. They'll be safer than safe."

He kissed her knuckles and nodded that he understood. "Those assholes were right that we stick out in our armor," he noted quietly, glancing around at all of the locals, who were wearing shoddy brahmin-skin outfits – the fact that none of them had been surprised by their fight said something about the normal events that took place in Freeside, and it wasn't good.

"We'll ditch it once we get to the Strip. My dad said they dress really nice there. We're going to have to find some fancy clothes."

"Joy," he mumbled sarcastically. "You just like dressing me up."

"Maybe," she admitted shamelessly. "Come on, let's find a place to buy some clothes."

They strolled through the streets of Freeside, committing everything to memory. A lot of the locals sent them darted glances before quickly looking away and hurrying along. There seemed to be some sort of gang as well, wearing greaser outfits with their hair slicked up. It was like a bunch of Butch DeLorias strutting around with the same cocky aura. But they seemed nice enough. They waved hello to her, called her "ma'am" and Charon, "buster." One of them stopped to ask if they needed help, and pointed them in the direction of a store called Mick & Ralph's when she said they needed clothes.

They found the little shop easily enough, with its big sign out front, and ducked carefully into the dark store. A man sitting behind a counter got immediately to his feet, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Hello, sir, ma'am, may I help you?"

Charon let Leah talk as he scanned the shop for any useful items or potential threats. She was the conversationalist and she could get them whatever they needed; he was better at the physical things – fighting, protecting, killing. . . . Another man standing in the back of the store looked up, nodded respectfully at him, and returned to the bench he was working at.

"Sure thing," Leah was saying to the first man, "would you be Mick, or Ralph?"

"Ralph, ma'am," he replied with a friendly smile, wiping a bit of grease from his hands. He shoved the scrap metal he'd been working with aside to clear the counter in front of him. "What can I get you?"

"My fiancé and I are planning on entering the strip, but all we have is our armor," she explained. "It'd be nice to have some fancy clothes so we can fit in."

"Say no more," Ralph cut her off, gesturing toward a wardrobe behind him. "I'd be glad to help. I can find the perfect outfits for you two." He flicked through the tens of clothing items that were packed tightly into the old wardrobe and carefully considered each one before he extracted a long, black dress and a matching dark suit. He laid them lovingly out over the counter, swiping a speck of dust from the dress, and grinned proudly at them. "Two of the best I have. Lucky for you, one of my customers is big like you, sir, otherwise I never woulda found one big enough."

Leah ran her hands over the dress in wonder, adoring its soft material with her fingertips. "This is so beautiful. It's perfect. I'll take them both. Name your price."

"Eh, since you've been so kind, I'll take a thousand for them."

Her eyes flashed knowingly. "I've been around the block once or twice, Ralph. Don't play me."

He chuckled. "All right, all right, five hundred. And I'll thrown in this as a gift." He placed a flat, square box onto the counter and lifted the lid to expose a sparkling pearl necklace nestled within.

Her grin was breathtaking. "You've got yourself a deal." She pulled out five bunches of one hundred caps and rolled them across the counter toward him. "Nice doing business with you!"

"You, too, ma'am. Hope to see you around."

Charon and Leah left the cluttered shop with their clothing in hand, squinting as they stepped out into the bright sunset.

"There's an alley over here we can change in," she muttered, pointing them toward a break in the walls to the right. They moseyed over and peered down into it, spotting one of the local men standing toward the very back. He looked completely distressed, grabbing at his hair and pacing back and forth.

"Do you need help, sir?" Leah called before her ghoul could stop her. She hung her dress from a nearby dumpster and pulled her gun out. "Is something the matter?"

"Smoothskin," Charon warned her, setting his suit down as well and grabbing his shotgun.

"M-my friend," the man cried, pointing toward a body on the ground, "He just dropped over! Somethin' wrong wif 'im!"

Leah approached slowly with Charon hot on her heels. They stopped feet away from the man and peered onto the ground, where a body was sprawled out with three bullet holes in it. "He's dead –,"

"Trap," Charon hissed, cocking his shotgun.

Leah looked up at the local and took a step backwards, "We should be leaving," she said shakily.

"Not so fast," the man said, drawing a lead pipe from his back pocket, "we wanna get to know ya first."

A glance over his shoulder informed Charon that they were surrounded by two other men. He blasted the one in front of him with his shotgun while Leah quickly dispatched the two behind them. They waited, rigid with adrenaline, while the sound of their gunshots echoed around the alley and faded into silence. Their ears ringing, they put their guns away once they were sure there were no more.

"I don't get it," Leah said, stepping over a dead thug to retrieve her dress, "their weapons were so crappy. We're in full armor. Why would they think they stood a chance?"

"They were probably addicts, desperate to get money to pay for their next fix," Charon said with a shrug. Their clothing in hand, they returned to the shadowed back end of the alleyway. "They couldn't really grasp the reality of the situation."

"Oh, shit," Leah groaned, their attack already out of her mind, "there's a _stain_ on it!"

Charon carefully held up the bottom of the dress and nodded. "Indeed there is. Hold it up." He pulled out his combat blade, took the material in his hands, and carefully cut out a thin slice of the dress. He pulled the triangle of material away, and released the dress. "There."

Leah frowned in confusion.

"Put it on and see," he suggested with a smirk, shrugging out of his armor.

She wordlessly obeyed, unbuckling her armor and placing the plates of it on the ground. "Turn around," she said before slipping into the dress.

"Why?" he complained, buttoning up his shirt.

"I want it to surprise you."

With a scoff of impatience, Charon turned around. He heard her clumsy footsteps as she put the dress on and tried to focus on buckling his slacks. "Okay!" she cried triumphantly and he spun around.

"Your little chop job was perfect," she was saying, but he didn't register her words. Not when the slit he'd cut into the dress was exposing so, so much of her tan, long legs. The straps of the dress were edged with red frills that climbed up over her sharp collarbone and around to the back of her neck. She did a twirl for him, showing him the elegant drop in the dress that fell to the small of her back. The black material clung lovingly to her curves and made his mouth water. He swallowed and stepped up to her, smiling slowly.

"Good?" she asked with a smirk.

"Good?" he repeated incredulously. His fingers carefully extracted her hair band from her hair so that the black strands tumbled in waves to her shoulders. "Perfect."

"Perfect yourself," she teased, pulling his coat over his shoulders and buttoning it closed over his stomach. She kissed his jaw, grabbing her pair of red heels from her bag. "Let's go knock 'em dead."

* * *

><p>The Courier tapped the deteriorated green cloth of the table in front of him and the dealer place another card in front of him. A perfect twenty-one. The Courier couldn't help but smile. He was just doing this for an alibi, but winning a few thousand caps was a pretty nice bonus.<p>

"How do you do it?" the pretty blonde at his side twittered in amazement.

He grinned at her. "When I don't get lucky, I _really_ don't," he informed her calmly, "but when I do . . . I _really_ do."

Everyone at the table laughed at his little quip and he stopped a passing waitress to buy them all another round of drinks. "That's enough winning for me tonight," he informed them with another charming smile, "I'm headed over to the Aces. They've got a new band playing tonight. If you're feeling lucky, too, you'll meet me there." He slid gracefully from the stool, noting with a smirk that the blonde was coming with him. "Let's go, doll," he said invitingly, putting an arm around her shoulders. She purred in happiness and he gestured them toward the stairs.

That's when he saw her.

She was tan and lean and elegant and _drop dead fucking gorgeous_. Her black dress didn't leave much to the imagination, but what little it did would haunt your fantasies for the rest of your life. Her thin fingers graced her pearl necklace with a delicate touch as she laughed. She was climbing the steps, almost _dancing_ up them really, next to a humongous ghoul, her arm slipped through his. The way he looked at her was primal, possessive, and the Courier couldn't bring himself to blame him. If he had that beauty on his arm, he wouldn't let other men even _look_ at her. The ghoul held the door of the Aces open for her and together they disappeared into the mass of dancing bodies within. The door closed behind them and they were gone.

Masnie Sinclair sighed. It was really too bad he had a job to do. If his luck continued, she'd still be dancing in the Aces when he was done.

* * *

><p>"I've never been anywhere like this!" Leah cried over the swinging music of the live band.<p>

Charon laughed under his breath. "Me neither, smoothskin. Do you want to dance?"

"Oooh, I'd _love_ to, but we do have a courier to look for," she simpered back. "I'd like to at least take a look around before we take a chance by asking at the front desk. If he's hunting the man who shot him in the head, he won't have told the front desk who he is and what he's doing here."

"Agreed. Shall we split up?"

She grabbed his tie and yanked his face down to hers for a kiss. "Just don't run off on me with some other woman. You look good enough to eat in that suit and don't think other women won't notice."

He chuckled against her lips. "I'll beat them off of me if I must."

"If you don't, I will," she promised a little too sincerely. "We'll meet up at the bar once we've made our rounds."

Charon nodded, brushed his fingertips over her cheek, and then took off into the bustling crowds of people.

Leah smiled to herself. The music was so upbeat, jazzy, but more glamorous than the stuff back east. It _made_ you dance, so that even though she was on a rather critical mission, she found herself swaying to the beat, grinning like a fool. She kept an eye out for a man with black hair and blue eyes, surprisingly rare among all of the men around her. Most of them were short and blonde- or brown-haired and more than a little bit sleazy. Sunny Smiles had made it seem like she'd know it when she saw him and she let her intuition take over.

She was asked to dance more than once and had to turn many of them down – it got annoying after a while, actually, because the deeper they got into the night, the more aggressive and drunk the men became.

"Come on, baby," a blonde, pudgy man pleaded, pulling at her arm, "just one – one dance with me, you won't regret it."

She grabbed his pinky finger and peeled it backward until he was screeching in pain, his voice lost among the loud music. He let go of her and she danced past him with a sigh.

"My, my," a rough voice drawled from behind her, "what have we here? A beautiful woman like you should be dancing with someone, don't you think?"

"Look, asshole, I came here to find someone," she hissed, whirling around, "not to be hit on by – by – by . . . Desmond Lockheart?"

The old ghoul smirked at her and crossed his arms. "Thought it was you. I'd recognize that arse anywhere, in armor or a swanky dress like this one. Good to see you're keeping yourself fit. You here alone, little hero, or are you still with –,"

"Me," a growl interrupted him and they both looked up to see Charon looming overhead, snaking a possessive arm around Leah's shoulders.

"Well, don't you clean up well?" Desmond barked out a laugh. "Can't believe you two made your way to fucking Vegas." He paused, arching a brow at them. "You said you were looking for someone?"

Recognition lit up Leah's eyes. "And so are you. You're the ghoul looking for that courier, too."

Desmond shushed her and glanced around, putting a hand on her shoulder and drawing the both of them toward a less-crowded part of the dance-floor. They sat at a small table to talk. "Are you _trying_ to fuck everything up? I'd almost forgotten what a meddling, troublesome little bird you can be. Yes, I'm looking for him."

"Why?"

"Well, why are _you_ looking for him?" he demanded back. "He's not who I'm after, but he can get me to the one I am."

"Yeah, same here," Leah agreed with narrowed eyes. "How long have you been following him?"

Desmond scoffed. "For fucking months. He's not an easy bloke to find, that's for bloody certain. And now that I know where he is, I can't risk scaring him off."

"We're in the same situation. Maybe we can help each other out."

"I doubt it," he disagreed dismissively, "you've only been trouble for me."

Leah growled, "Is that so? We only helped you with one rival. We can help each other with this courier. It'll be easy."

Desmond stared off into the mass of bodies as if thinking hard. "Perhaps we can, actually. I've watched him. He's a bloody lady killer. He likes them submissive and glamorous, but those are just toys for him. I think he'd rather enjoy a challenge like you, smoothskin. Someone bold, different. Yeeeees," he hissed with a calculating smile. "You could be very useful indeed."

"No," Charon snarled immediately. "She's not playing bait."

"Well, then _you_ figure out a way to get the Courier to sit down and talk with us."

"I don't mind playing bait, but I don't think it should be for the Courier himself," Leah said thoughtfully. "Lying to him won't earn his trust, and that's what we need. I think we need to help him get Benny."

Desmond and Charon exchanged a look.

"That makes sense," Desmond agreed. "We'll help him get what he's here for."

"He'll be cautious, but he'll also be curious. It's perfect."

"So, how do we do this, smoothskin?" Desmond asked with a perfectly wicked smile.

"Listen closely, boys. I've got a plan."

* * *

><p>Leah approached the counter, swaying her hips with each step, her heels clicking sensually on tile. She draped her thin arms over the counter and leaned forward toward the chairman standing there, doing her best to look alluring.<p>

He smiled goofily at her – allured. "What can I do for you, pussycat?"

"Mmmn," Leah purred with a purse of her pink lips, "Benny told me to meet him at his room, but for the life of me, I can't remember what room it was. Silly me." She rolled her eyes as if exasperated with her own forgetfulness and then smiled at him. "When I've got a few drinks in me, I turn into a real dope. You wouldn't happen to know what room is his, would you?"

The man pulled at his collar, looking disappointed. _Benny always got the beautiful ones._ "S-sure thing, baby doll, he's on the top floor. As soon as you get out of the elevator, turn right. Third door on the left. Tell him I say . . . tell him I say congrats."

She smiled winningly at him and blew him a kiss before she danced away. "Thank you!"

* * *

><p>"That was too easy," she bragged, accepting a silenced pistol from Charon in the elevator.<p>

"You're a pain in the arse, and a troublemaker, and a nuisance, but tonight you're a godsend."

"Thanks, Desmond," she deadpanned. "You really know how to make a woman feel loved."

"Don't start now, you two," Charon warned, checking to make sure his own gun was loaded. "Let's just get this Benny guy, and take care of him."

"Nobody kills him," Leah added. "It's the Courier's revenge to take. Not ours."

"All right, we got it," Desmond retorted with a roll of his eyes. "You only need to tell us once."

She made to snap at him, but the elevator doors opened and they all fell silent. Leah took the lead, slinking silently down the hall, her heels long discarded in her bag so she could move quietly in her bare feet. The two ghouls followed closely. She nodded at the third door on the left and they moved to surround it. She pressed her back against the wall next to it.

_One_, she mouthed, _two . . . three –_

The sound of silencer-muffled gunshots interrupted her countdown and they all grew instantly rigid. She turned the knob and yanked the door open, pivoting into the room with her gun at the ready, two ghouls ready behind her.

Benny Gecko was sprawled out on the floor beside a dining room table, still-warm blood seeping out of two gunshots to the head into the carpet. Above him, standing at the bar, a tall man with black hair and broad shoulders in a custom-tailored suit was twisting a shaker around in one hand and readying an empty glass with the other. His hands stilled as he looked up, taking the three of them in with sharp, blue eyes. They all stared at each other in confusion and silent wonder.

And, never taking his eyes off of them, with the calmness of someone who _hadn't_ just taken out revenge on the man who shot him in the head . . . the Courier continued mixing his drink.


	4. Play the Game

"Well, sit down or something – feel weird with you just standing in the doorway, watching me." The Courier flopped onto a nearby chair and took a long sip of his drink, exhaling in refreshment.

The three in the doorway seemed completely frozen. "You're the Courier?" Leah asked uncertainly.

He shrugged his shoulders a little and pegged them with a curious look. "You two," he said, spreading out his index and middle fingers to point at Desmond and Charon on either side of her, "you can call me Sinclair. And you." He gestured straight at Leah with a smirk. "You can call me whatever comes to mind in the throes of ecstasy."

Desmond actually laughed as Leah turned bright pink. She held up her left hand, where a silver band perfectly hugged her ring finger. "Spoken for. Sorry. Nice pick-up line, though."

"Yeah, it's actually pretty good. And I said sit down. Seriously. The doorway standing. It's weird."

Still a bit stunned, Charon and Leah sat down on what used to be Benny's couch. Desmond closed the door and then took a seat in the chair beside the Courier, crossing his legs.

"I'd offer you food or something, but I don't know where Benny keeps everything. This was already out on the bar," he informed them, holding up his drink. "I can make you one, if you want, but I don't think you're here for overpriced booze."

"No," Leah agreed, finally shaking off the shock.

"Well I can't really call you Hottie, Mustache, and Behemoth, so your names would probably make this conversation a little easier."

"My name is Leah," she introduced herself with a smile, "this is Charon, and our friend Desmond Lockheart."

"Lockheart, huh? That's almost as annoying as my name," Sinclair laughed. He ran a hand through his tousled black hair and regarded them coolly, slinging an arm over the back of his chair and kicking his perfectly shined shoes up onto the coffee table. "My name is Masnie Sinclair, though, like I said to preface my awesome pick-up line earlier, you can just call me Sinclair."

"Ugh," Desmond sneered, "annoying indeed. Masnie? Not even a name."

"Yeah, well, Charon? Really?"

Charon's smirk twisted into a frown. "It's from Greek mythology," he complained. "The ferryman for dead souls across the rivers Styx and Acheron?"

"Nyooope," Sinclair denied with a shake of his arrogant head, "never heard of it."

"Masnie sounds like a girl name," Leah protested indignantly in defense of her man and his badass name.

"And so is 'Sharon.' Besides, my name's unique. My mother made it up."

"Doesn't make it any less dumb," she argued.

"It's pretty stupid," he agreed flippantly. "Mother." His lips tipped up into a cold, mirthless smile. "She had a twisted sense of humor, that one. Though she was never abusive. No, that was my father. The best thing he ever did for our family was leave, but Mother never forgave him for it. That's why she named me Masnie. If you flip it around, you get 'einsam,' which, in my _mudder's natif langvauge of German_," he explained in a suddenly thick accent, "means 'lonely.'"

"That's awful!" Leah exclaimed. "What mother names her son that?"

"Mine. Lucky me. You should meet my sister. Anyways, we got sidetracked. You were just about to tell me what you want from me so that I can tell you to fuck off and leave me alone."

"Well, with that attitude, we're hardly likely to tell you anything," she griped. "You're an asshole, you know that?"

"Duh and/or hello!" he nearly yelled. "Now she gets it!"

She sighed and dropped her face into her hands and Desmond decided to cut in before she ruined both of their chances for help. "You know people that we need to meet. I've heard that you are the first to enter the Lucky 38."

"Eh, I checked it out," Sinclair dismissed with a shrug, eyeing his empty glass mournfully. "Damn, I'll have to make another drink. Any of you want one, since I'll be up?" he offered, heaving up to his feet and fixing the lapel of his suit.

"No, thank you." Leah followed him to the counter though and leaned across it toward him. "Desmond needs to find and speak to Mr. House."

"That old bastard?" Sinclair laughed as he started shaking his next drink. "Talk about old money. You ever read that book? _The Great Gatsby?_ Awful thing. No pictures."

"You are at once the most useless and infuriating person I have ever spoken to," she declared, throwing her arms up in defeat. "I've had less trouble speaking to my nine-year-old!"

"Oh, you have kids," Sinclair observed warily. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I, uh, retract my earlier pick-up line. Don't do moms. Sorry."

"Look, asshole," Leah hissed, grabbing him by the lapel and yanking him over the counter, savoring the shock on his handsome face, "my family and I came all the way from Washington D-the-fuck-C to find the Brotherhood of Steel and if you can't help us with that, then why don't we just stop wasting each other's time and _leave_?"

"All right, all right, just let go of my suit!" he cried, actually looking afraid. Leah unclenched her fists and he fell away, immediately running his hands over his lapels. "Oh, thank God. You know how hard it is to get a good goddamn suit in post-nuclear apocalypse?"

Leah blinked at him, completely flabbergasted. "Pretty hard?"

"_Really fuckin' hard!_ Jesus! All right, you want to find the Brotherhood of Steel, fine. What do you want?" he demanded, pointing accusingly at Desmond.

"To kill Robert House," the ghoul replied simply.

Sinclair considered that, rubbing absently at his strong, dimpled chin. He splayed a hand out and shrugged. "That actually doesn't interfere with any of my plans at all. Anything you want, big guy?" He nodded at Charon.

The big ghoul shook his head. "I want what Leah wants."

"Wow, you must have needed a _huge_ whip for this one," he commented to Leah with a smirk. "Either way, that's great. I will help _you_ to find the Brotherhood, and I will help _you_ to kill Robert House. Let's go over what I want in return."

"Please," Leah deadpanned.

"Thank you. Since you guys want two things, I want two things. The first . . . remember that sister I mentioned? Help me find her. Second, help me take over New Vegas." He poured his drink and took a sip, licking his lips as he considered the taste. With a shake of his head, he added more liquor to it.

"Wait – wait . . . take over New Vegas?" Leah demanded incredulously. "As in – by yourself, becoming like a dictator? Or ruler or something?"

"Dictator sounds so . . ." He dithered, flopping his hand back and forth as he searched for the word. "Shitty."

"Ah, le mot juste," Leah sighed sarcastically.

"Yeah, whatever, back to me. I just want to make the big decisions and I want people to respect me and listen to me and get the shit done that I need done. That's what I've been doing so far. Going to different groups in the Mojave, getting them to like me, kissin' some ass, so that when I make my big move, everything falls into line like it should."

"What do you mean by that?" Charon asked in confusion.

"I don't know if you easterners noticed, but there's a war about to happen here between the NCR and the Legion – and if things continue the way they are, the Legion is going to tear them a new asshole. We've already got Freeside. One is enough. So I've been preparing, weighing my hand, making it stronger. I could point New Vegas in the right direction, not sit here trying to force it back into its shitty old ways like House is. I'm not sure how much you know about the Mojave, but everything is up in the air. No one group is safe or set in stone and this war could fuck _everyone_ over. If you help me get in with these groups, help me sway them to my cause, kill House – which would actually be a huge favor for me, so thanks for that – and secure the biggest place of power in the Mojave . . . that would be ideal." He shrugged. "Besides, I was going to find the Brotherhood eventually anyways. House wants me to blow 'em up."

Leah's face paled. "If you make any move to harm the Brotherhood, I will be forced to kill you," she informed him coldly.

"Good, because it was sort of on my agenda to get their support along the way," Sinclair said. "I'd very much like to hear that you have some sort of good standing with them?"

"They just appointed me Sentinel. Highest rank you can achieve below elder," she informed him.

"I like the sound of that. I'll need your help making them come around."

"It sounds," Desmond interjected with a slow smile, "like we can all help each other _and_ ourselves at the same time."

"You're right. It's perfect," Leah agreed.

"Yeah, whatever." That seemed to be Sinclair's favorite phrase when the conversation was straying too far away from himself. "I stay at the Lucky 38. You guys can join me at the presidential suite there at any time. House just doesn't let anyone go up to the penthouse where he is, so whenever you want to kill him, it'll have to be all out. We have to battle past the ten Securitrons he keeps up there."

"Whatever it takes," Desmond answered solemnly.

"That sounds good. Charon and I will stop by tomorrow."

"What, no sleepover?" Sinclair affected offense. "I told you, I don't do moms, there's no need to worry."

She rolled her eyes. "We have to return to our children. They're cooped up at El Rey Motel right now."

"Ah, what a shithole," Sinclair muttered. "These rooms and the presidential suite across the hall from them are suddenly vacant. Take those if you want 'em."

"That's actually a huge help," Leah reluctantly admitted. "Thank you, Masnie."

"Ugh." He shuddered. "Please. Sinclair."

"Nyooope."

"But –,"

"It's Masnie."

He sighed and gave up. "Fine. I'll see you in the morning. You coming or staying, limey?" he asked.

Desmond looked back and forth between them and stepped toward Charon. "It's best if House doesn't see me coming until absolutely necessary. We have a history. You wouldn't understand."

"And here I thought there was no way you could be as pretentious as your name," Sinclair gasped. "Silly me."

"Wait, before you go!" Leah tugged on his sleeve. "We have a super mutant that I'd hate to leave alone at the motel. Can you think of anywhere for him to stay?"

Sinclair shrugged. "He can stay with me, if he won't be a hassle. I have a nightkin myself. Third-gen super mutants," he explained briefly. "A little wacko in the head. Thinks she's my grandma. But she's a damn good fighter and protects me all the more for it. Can't complain."

"Mine is named Fawkes and he likes to quote Zen philosophies. Mostly keeps to himself, though."

"They'll get along swimmingly. Oh, here lemme take care of this," he added, grabbing Benny's body by the ankle and dragging him toward the door. "Thought I'd have more time to keep him from bleeding on the carpets, but he's faster than I gave him credit for. The dick. I'll stuff him in a water closet or something. Meet me at the Lucky 38 tomorrow, we'll talk about finding my sister." With no further ado, the Courier disappeared around the corner, the sound of Benny's body dragging heavily along the ground fading after him.

The remaining three stood there in the type of shock reserved for the aftermath of devastating natural disasters.

"What a . . . character," Leah remarked dryly.

"Yes, this is going to be a challenge," Desmond agreed. "I'm exhausted after just _talking_ with him."

"Whatever it takes," she repeated his words at him and he nodded curtly. "We have to go pick up Fawkes and the kids. We'll be back." She and Charon made for the door.

"Oh, the master suite is ours," Charon called over his shoulder as they left.

"What –!"

The doors closed behind them, cutting off Desmond and his anger. The couple held hands and smiled at each other. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into, but they'd come here to get something done, and get it done they would. Like Desmond had said . . . whatever it took.

* * *

><p>Fawkes stepped uncertainly out of the elevator, glancing around at the suite. Lined with red carpet and fitted with old furnishings, filled near to burst with a gaggle of people that could not have been more different from each other if they'd tried. The first to catch his attention was the third-gen mutant in the corner. He smiled at her. She smiled back.<p>

"My name is Fawkes," he introduced himself cordially, "and I thank you for your hospitality."

The tension in the room dissipated immediately and the people all came toward him for handshakes, smiling invitingly. It was a young girl in brown robes that took him most by surprise, that made him feel the most at home.

She saddled up to him and gave him a hug as best she could with her small arms and his wide chest. "You seem like a neat guy, Fawkes, and I hope you don't go feral. I'd hate to hate to kill you someday."

He let out a rumble of a laugh that startled a nearby woman with red hair and gently patted her back. "Me, too, new little friend. Me, too."

* * *

><p>"Wooooow!" The children burst into the presidential suite and immediately ran about the room, <em>touching<em> things, as children did, running their hands over carpet and wallpaper and furniture. Some of them ran into rooms and claimed beds, others explored in sheer shock and curiosity.

"For an asshole, he really did us a favor," Leah admitted from under Charon's arm, watching her family admire their new surroundings.

"True enough," he reluctantly agreed. "Shall we get to bed . . . or would you like to shower first?"

She laughed huskily as they turned back for the other suite. "By 'shower,' do you mean 'desecrate the tiles of a dead man's bathroom?'"

"Something along those lines."

"Then . . . yes. Count me in."

He yanked her up into his arms and kicked the doors closed behind him, their laughter echoing down the long hallway behind them.

"Jesus, you look so fucking good in a suit," she gasped, their lips meeting the instant the doors closed. He moved them clumsily toward the bathroom, her kisses making his head swim. Once they were undressed and under the hot spray of the shower, and he was taking her violently against the tiled wall, they finally let all of their apprehensions go and allowed the physical sensations to take over. Sure, they were in foreign land and sure, they had no idea what they were doing and what their choices would lead to, but they had _this_, they had _each other_, and even in the darkest, most uncertain of times they would have their love to light the way.

Fingers bit into skin as they reached their mutual climax and, spent, exhausted, they both collapsed into the bed that was much too large, but far too comfortable to complain about. They held each other, skin still warm from the water and lovemaking, and whispered tired murmurs of love and appreciation. He kissed each slender knuckle and lastly the silver band around her ring finger. Her soft giggle was enough to make his heart clench. It was so easy sometimes to forget how far he'd come, from heartless, unseeing slave, a machine _built_ to obey, to _kill_, to harm, to a man completely devoted and hanging on every word that tumbled from the pink, smiling lips of his fiancée. _Fiancée_. Marriage had never even been a thought in his mind. Hell, _love_ had never even been considered. And here he was, tracing the engagement ring around the love of his life's finger. They kissed one last time before they released control to the warm embrace of sleep, and the last thought that ran through his mind was comforting enough to put him to rest.

They had a journey in front of them, certainly dangerous, maybe even fatal, but considering how far they'd come together . . . it didn't seem so bad. It didn't seem so bad at all.

* * *

><p>Masnie Sinclair grinned and shoved the bottle of whiskey toward his companion. "Come oooon, buddy, just one."<p>

"What part of 'I don't drink' are you not understanding?" Craig Boone asked coldly, sliding the bottle once again away from himself.

"Core concept, really," Sinclair admitted. "I just don't get how you can handle all this shit without getting plastered every now and then."

"Um, by my observations, your 'every now and then' is 'every night from eight to two,'" Arcade Gannon informed him with a smile.

"Yeah, well, whatever!" Sinclair threw his hands up in the air. "It's the Wasteland! Who's judging who?"

"And here comes the part where he answers his own question," Veronica Santangelo muttered with a giggle.

"I'm judging you, Boone, that's who's judging who!" Sinclair enlightened them all with an ostentatious point in the First Recon sniper's direction. "Look how much fun Cass and I have when we drink!"

"Last time you guys got this drunk, you took turns throwing up in my sock drawer," Arcade complained.

"And Cass is currently passed out at the opposite end of the table."

"She's drooling on the Formica –,"

"Shut up, Veronica!" Sinclair snapped. "And shut up, Boone, and shut up, Gannon, and shut up everyone! We only did that because you wear a clean pair of socks every day and who _does_ that? In the Wasteland? I mean . . . _really? Who does that?_" Sinclair deflated and fell back against his chair, his eyes sad, his shoulders limp. "I just don't get it, guys. I just, I just . . . I don't . . . get it."

"Allllll right, then," Raul Tejada sang, piping up from the first time from across the table beside the unconscious Cass. He piled his utensils onto his now empty plate and set it aside to wash later. "I think you've had enough, boss."

"Mhm." Sinclair nodded, vaguely reminiscent of a baby who had played too much and overexerted himself.

"To bed then, fearless leader," the ghoul said sarcastically, grabbing the Courier's arm and slinging it over his shoulders. He led him out of the dining area and toward his room across the hall, muttering in Spanish to himself as he went.

Arcade sighed. "You think it'd get old after a while, this habit of drinking every night."

"Sinclair, a creature of habit?" Veronica asked, affecting incredulity. "Nooooo."

"I think it's past 'habit' at this point," Boone added.

"True enough. He does show signs of alcoholism."

"What signs would those be, genius?" Cass interjected, her voice muffled against the table. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, eyes bloodshot, hat askew. "The alcohol drinking or the being drunk at all times of the night?"

Arcade glared at her. "Go to sleep. You're not much better."

"Make me, Gannon." She gurgled out a laugh, but got to her feet. "You're right. I know when I've had enough and I passed that point a long time ago. Night, all."

They wished her a good night and watched her tumble out of the room, probably to pass out on the couch in the room she, Veronica, and Gannon shared because she couldn't quite make it to the bed.

"Our super friends still talking?" Veronica asked to ease past the awkward tension. They'd all been following the Courier for a while now, but they were still relatively new as friends.

"Yes, it would seem so," Arcade replied. "I can still hear the rumble of their voices."

Veronica frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder what it's like, finding someone else like you when you thought you were totally alone. I bet it's nice."

They continued to chat back and forth, but Boone was stuck on that statement. He'd been lost in the Mojave, lost in his own life, since Carla died, and he'd thought it was hopeless. He'd never considered that he'd just have to find the right person. Maybe there was hope for him. Maybe there was hope for the rest of this shithole world.

Then again, he thought grimly as the others left the table and made for their rooms, leaving him alone with an open bottle of whiskey and his own dark thoughts, maybe there just wasn't any hope left. For any of them.

His fist closed around the neck of the bottle, trembled there, lifted it an inch from the table. His grip loosened, lowering the bottle back down, and then he got up from his seat and stalked silently back to his room.

He'd think about it tomorrow, he promised himself, just like he had every night since he'd lost her. It had worked so far. Far be it from him to change it.


	5. Getting Along

Nova sighed. She fidgeted and crossed her arms and tapped her foot and sighed some more. She was nothing if not persistent and her tenacity was rapidly eroding at her ghoul's nerves.

"Jesus, Nova," Gob groaned, pulling another one of his threadbare shirts on over his head. He rolled his eyes in frustration as he tugged it down over his chest, but his smile was genuine. "I know you like your morning routine, but could you quiet your impatience down a little bit?"

The redhead pouted out her full bottom lip, still upset but glad to have gotten his attention. "That asshole has been in there for _years_, baby! Get him out so I can have my turn."

"Whoa," Gob laughed, shaking his head, "if you think I'm gettin' into a fistfight with that crazy old bastard over your turn in the bathroom, then you're crazier than I thought."

"But _baby_," she whined, pushing off from the bathroom wall to press herself against his chest. Her pale hands ran over his shoulders and down to his pectorals, where she traced the muscles of his chest through the material of his shirt. "Charon would just grab him and toss him out! What happened to that alpha male shit you brought home from the Outcast fight?"

"Smoothskin, Charon is six feet and five inches of two hundred years of hard labor," Gob replied with an amused smirk, "he uses a shotgun the size of his fiancée. He'd definitely be able to pick that limey rat up by the collar and drag him out of the bathroom, but he's not the one standing in front of you right now. Sorry, smoothskin." He rasped out a chuckle when she scowled, but did not disagree. "Go ask Leah if you can use her bathroom. After the racket we heard last night, I bet they won't be up to use it for a while."

"Boo," Nova complained half-heartedly, but she grabbed her bag and obeyed nonetheless, pecking the ghoul on the lips before she moved out of the bedroom. Lucy and Éclair were already awake and in the kitchen, preparing food for everyone. Nova gave them a smile and a wave, damn grateful that they were around. Cooking had never been her thing and she didn't want to _make_ it her thing. She stepped out into the hallway, glancing up and down the long corridor before she darted across to the door of the opposite suite. She rapped her knuckles tentatively at the door. "Leah? Baby, you awake?"

"Come in," her friend called, rather hoarsely.

Nova stepped into the suite and appreciated its size, doing her best to firmly ignore the blood stains on the carpet. Regardless, she tiptoed carefully around it. Leah and Charon weren't squeamish; hell, the ghoul would rip a man's veins out of his wrists for just _looking_ at his smoothskin wrong. But Nova couldn't see herself ever getting used to the gore of the Wasteland. The sex, the drugs . . . all of that she'd _had_ to adapt to, because of her "job," but it had at least kept her safe from the violence. She approached the bedroom door, hanging ajar, and waited to be welcomed in.

"Jesus, Nova, just come in," Leah yawned from within.

The redhead smiled and slipped into the room. Charon, being the largest thing inside of the relatively small room, was the first thing she saw: sprawled out loosely on the bed, maroon bed sheets thrown over his waist – probably by Leah, for Nova's sake, because the ghoul didn't strike her as the type to care deeply about modesty.

Leah was nestled against his side, too tired to even open her eyes. "Whadyou want?" she murmured. Charon twitched and grumbled in frustration, rolling onto his side.

"To use your bathroom. That British asshole you forced into our rooms has been in ours for the past half hour."

"Mmmn, go ahead." Leah dismissed her with a wave in favor of cuddling closer to her ghoul. He nipped roguishly at her shoulder and she let out an exhausted giggle.

Nova passed the closest door over, assuming it was the closet, and headed for another down a very small hallway. She glanced back over at her friends, smiling adoringly at how cute they could be, and backed into the bathroom. She closed the door and turned back around – running straight into a humongous robot that was _smiling_ at her.

"Hi!" it greeted her cheerily, high voice assaulting her senses.

Nova shrieked in terror and stumbled away from the robot, her bag dropping to the floor as she slapped her hands over her hammering heart. The robot wheeled closer to her, tentative, as if sensing her fear.

And then the door flew open and Leah and Charon burst into the room, tripping over each other and their clothing, which they had half-attempted to dress themselves with and given up on. They tumbled to the floor in a mass of flailing limbs and four-letter words as Nova did her best to hold the certainly imminent heart attack at bay.

"What's going on?" Leah demanded, her body tangled with Charon's. The ghoul got to his feet and she came with him, hanging precariously from his waist in her underwear. He lifted up his shotgun and aimed it at the robot, his normally terror-inducing glare somewhat dampened by his pants and how they were slowly beginning to sag down his legs.

"Did it attack you?" he growled, cocking his gun threateningly. The pants were quickly approaching his knees.

Nova looked back and forth between her half-naked friends, one of them quickly becoming just naked, and the robot that had nearly scared the shit out of her, that smile still plastered onto his faceplate. And then she laughed, laughed so hard she slid down the wall onto her butt and tears began to stream down her face.

"I'll take that as a 'no,'" Leah answered him with a cheeky grin. He dropped her to the floor, unceremonious and unamused. He stalked out of the room to finish getting dressed, hauling his pants back up to his hips and buckling them, grumbling angrily about "fucking smoothskins" as he went.

Leah was laughing now, too. She helped Nova back up to her feet and patted her deliriously on the back. "Ba-bathroom's the other door," she explained through her giggles, "n-no robots inside!"

Nova wailed with laughter and stumbled out of the room. Leah rounded on the robot, pressing her lips tightly together to keep from giggling. "So, what do we do with _you_?"

"My name is Yes Man!" the robot chimed happily, "ma'am!" he added respectfully.

"And what are you doing in this . . . this secret little hidey hole, with all of these computer terminals, Yes Man?"

"Benny set them up, ma'am. He was planning to take over New Vegas."

Leah's delicately arched eyebrows shot up so far they almost disappeared beneath her bangs. "He was what?"

"Who was what?" Charon demanded, sliding his second belt into place as he stomped back into the room, now fully clothed, shotgun slung over a shoulder.

"I was assisting Benny to take over New Vegas," Yes Man explained helpfully. "I was going to help him infiltrate Mr. House's network once he got into the Lucky 38."

Leah crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "You know, you're rather . . . forthcoming with this info, don't you think?"

"It's what Benny programmed me to do: help people!"

"And perpetually cheery, too," Charon noted unhappily. "I don't like the look of this thing."

Leah rolled her eyes. "That's because you still have that stick up your ass."

Charon smirked, lifting the remains of his eyebrows suggestively. "At least, after last night, we know that there is not one up yours."

The pain of her slap was definitely worth seeing the look on her face. He covered his stinging cheek and smiled as he watched her stomp away, flipping him off over her shoulder as she hollered, "Bring that robot and get that limey _fuck_ out of the bathroom! We need to go see Masnie!"

* * *

><p>Desmond Lockheart did not like children. He didn't like small children or big children and he certainly didn't like eleven children chattering and nearly tripping him over on his first step out of the bathroom. The dark-haired scrawny kid in question blurted out a quick, "Sorry, man!" and made to run away. Desmond grabbed him by the back of his shirt and tossed him dismissively to the side, sending him sprawling out onto the floor. The ghoul then stepped over his body and glided into the next room with a toss of his dignified head and a gruff, "Yes, you should be."<p>

"Hey!" Gob called angrily, hurrying over from unpacking his luggage to help Zip back up to his feet. "You okay, kid?"

Zip flipped his hair back from his face with a scowl. "Dude . . . that guy's kind of an asshole."

"Yeah, I'm beginning to wonder why we're keeping him around," Gob agreed dryly. "Next time you see your old man, you ask him how long that asshole's gonna stay."

"Sure thing." Zip dusted himself off and pattered into the next room, where his brothers and sisters were all milling around the table in various stages of eating their breakfast. That prick Desmond was sitting on a couch in the corner, one leg perched horizontal over the other as he referred to an open notebook in his lap, a sniper rifle snuggled close to his side.

Zip squeezed in between two of his brothers who were making their way over to the table with plates of food in hand. "Luce, you know if Pops is up?"

The brunette looked up from the milk she was pouring into Bumble's cereal, dark eyes wide, her hair frayed from the stress of preparing meals for their oversized family. "I don't know, Zip, do I look like I know everything?" she snapped at him.

Zip reeled away with his hands up in defense, the other children staring at their sister in silent surprise. "All right, all right, I'll go find out myself." Hunching his shoulders, he slipped from the suite and into the hallway. Squeals of laughter were muffled behind the door and, tentatively, he knocked at it.

The door was almost immediately wrenched open and then Charon was _there_, filling the doorway like he always did, looking down on his son. "Zip. What's the matter?"

Zip always felt a little bit intimidated under that stare, that endless, steady stare, like the blaring of the sun, constant and strong, but he also felt inexplicably safe. He peered around the ghoul's wide frame to see Leah and Nova padding around behind him, brushing their teeth and flinging water at each other. The redhead swiped her wet rag in Charon's direction and he stiffened as the drops hit him straight in the back.

Zip watched in amusement as he ran a hand over his face. With a warning growl in the girls' direction, Charon stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him amid another chorus of giggles. "What is it, Zip?"

Doing his best to hide a smirk, he faithfully reported, "Gob wants to know how soon we can get this asshole Desmond to leave and Lucy is so stressed she's about to pop a vein."

"Ah," Charon replied at once with an almost tranquil smile, "problems, my son, for your mother to address. Breakfast ready?"

"Hot and waiting."

"Then let's let Leah worry about all that shit and go get us some food."

* * *

><p>"Will you be all right with them all day? I hate to take advantage of you, and I know your patience gets thin with them –,"<p>

"Give it a rest, smoothskin," Gob complained, pushing Leah toward the doorway. "Go take care of your business. The Mrs. and I'll take the kids sightseeing."

"Okay, but _please_ be careful – I left my best assault rifle here for you to take just in case things get rough, please don't leave the Tops without it –,"

"Jesus Christ," Nova sighed amid the sound of the children all groaning in unison. "You're gonna go prematurely gray like this. Charon, please."

"On it." He hitched Leah up over his shoulder, much to her very vocal protest. "Smoothskin, the children will be fine. Don't we have to go see the Courier now? Yes, that's right, we should leave right away. We will be back later," he called over his free shoulder as he ducked under the doorway and out into the hallway, Desmond Lockheart lighting a cigar as he followed. The robot waiting for them in the hallway greeted them with his constant smile and dutifully trailed after their heels.

The chairmen all stared at them as they passed through the lobby, wary of their weapons and armor. Leah gave them her best shit-eating grin as she sashayed by. Swank, the new head of the Tops, happened to have a little crush on Leah and was quite willing to accept a few caps every now and then to let her family live up in the suites and carry all the weapons they needed to. Swank gave her a wink and a wave as she passed and she couldn't help but laugh and smile back.

"Pays to be beautiful," Charon grunted in amusement at her side.

"Sometimes, baby," she agreed with a breathtaking smile, "it really does."

* * *

><p>Masnie Sinclair did not wake up early. He did not like being woken up earlier than he was ready to, and if he was going to have to get up before that, then it had better be for something really amazing, like a beautiful woman, tugging hungrily at his suit buttons (albeit gently, so as not to ruin the material) desperate to have him ravish her over and over and then leave and never bother him again.<p>

Raul Alfonso Tejada was _not_ a needy, beautiful woman, so you could imagine Sinclair's indignation when he was slapped across the face and opened his eyes to the weathered smile of the ancient ghoul hovering above him.

"_Buenos__días_, boss," Raul greeted him with sarcastic cheer.

Sinclair groaned, running his hands over his face. ". . . the fuck, Tejada? Are you crazy, waking me up this early?"

"You have callers, boss, pretty lady, old ghoul like me."

"Shit, they're up early. Those east coasters are a few hours ahead, aren't they?"

"Er, I don't know, boss. I just know they're here, and they're bothering House's robot toys, so Cass let them up and –,"

"Oh, for fuck's sake! We need to get a leash on that drunk. Would you go entertain them while I get ready?"

"Sure thing, boss," Raul agreed dryly. "I love to make a new friend."

* * *

><p>"The name's Rose of Sharon Cassidy, but that's just what it says on my business card above 'firearm and whiskey enthusiast.' You can call me Cass. The prematurely-gray chronic dweeb is Arcade Gannon. That's Veronica next to him, Boone over in the corner – he doesn't talk much – the bionic dog is Rex, and over there we have our super mutant friends. The blue one is Lily. She's the nicest person you'll meet in this shithole of a world."<p>

"Oh, dearie, you're too kind," Lily roared, bashfully fixing her shawl.

Leah couldn't help smiling. She'd never met a mutant who preferred to wear real clothing before, and this one certainly seemed to be very kind. "Thank you for keeping Fawkes company, Lily."

"Well, aren't you sweet! It was no problem at all, sugar, he's a smart man, a very smart man."

Fawkes shuffled and grimaced in that odd, almost frightening way that Leah recognized as his smile.

"Everybody," Cass cut in with a sweeping gesture toward the newcomers, "this is Leah Montgomery and Charon."

"Charon," Arcade noted with some interest, recognition sparking behind his glasses. "An interesting name."

"He's an interesting guy," Leah agreed. "Just don't piss him off."

"Sounds a lot like Boone," Veronica laughed.

The quiet man's expression was mostly hidden behind his large sunglasses, but his lips twitched at the mention of his name. He straightened his beret and cleared his throat to awkwardly fill the silence as everyone turned to look at him. "Craig Boone," he introduced himself gruffly. "Ma'am," he also added for good measure.

"Did you know his name was Craig?" Cass stage-whispered to Veronica, who shook her head with pursed lips to contain her laughter.

A ghoul in a green jumpsuit strolled into the room and looked around at them all in some amusement. "Your Majesty is preparing himself for his guests," he informed them in a smooth, accented voice.

"You mean nursing a hangover?" Arcade corrected.

"And filling his flask with whiskey for the day?"

"And picking out which overpriced suit to wear?"

"You assholes think you know me so fucking well," Sinclair snapped as he strode into the room beside the ghoul, a pair of black shades shielding his eyes from the over-bright fluorescents. The dog Rex leapt up to his feet from where he'd been curled up in the corner and sprinted forward to rub happily against Sinclair's legs. He sighed and patted the dog's head patronizingly, but the animal seemed no less happy for it. "You and you," Sinclair barked, pointing commandingly at Arcade and Boone. "You're on Courier duty today."

Arcade let out a groan of disappointment and swiftly dodged the coffee mug the Courier lobbed at him in response. Boone simply got up to his feet and shouldered his rifle.

"And what's with such an early fucking wake-up call?" Sinclair demanded of Leah. "You ever hear of a full night's sleep? Don't answer that, I don't care what you have to say. I'm mad at you. Everybody else, hold the fort down while I'm gone. Cass, if I hear you had to be dragged out of Gomorrah one more time – I'll hit a woman, I swear to God. Let's go." He led the way to the elevator and the group of four followed into the long, slow way down. "Take me to see this robot and we'll figure out what to do from there."

"They're supposed to be waiting around outside, but knowing Desmond that's gone completely awry by now." Leah sucked in a breath of anxiety and stepped out into the dry heat of another Mojave morning.

A man in a black, pin-striped suit with a matching fedora hat was leaning against one of Gomorrah's pillars, watching the women dance. He approached the nearest one, a curvy little thing with olive skin and pretty eyes, and tipped his hat up to get a better look at her. She giggled, coy, touched his suit, twirled around so he could admire her body. A Securitron robot wheeled forward and scared the dancer into running back to her post. The man threw his hat down onto the ground and started cursing the machine off, throwing his arms up in fury.

"That'll be our Desmond," Leah sighed with a weary shake of her head. "He's nothing without that temper."

"Europeans, huh?" Sinclair snorted and quickened his pace across the Strip. "We'd better hurry before your Brit makes a scene."

"Not _my_ Brit," Charon grunted as Leah laughed. Sinclair's friends Arcade and Boone kept close, but not suffocatingly so as they headed over to calm Desmond down. It seemed they'd been following Sinclair long enough to have a rhythm down by now.

Desmond was still spewing four-letter words when they stepped up. Leah appealed to the dancer with a flash of teeth and a smooth apology while Charon escorted Desmond and their new robot toward the main gate. The Gomorrah worker was very willing to forget the whole incident ever happened with just a sloppy kiss and a few caps slipped into the only pocket the scanty clothes on her body could fit. Leah rounded up a suddenly very interested Sinclair and his friends until they'd all disappeared into Freeside and the Strip could forget about them for a while.

* * *

><p>The door closed behind them with a deafening crash. The air was so thick with smoke, sex, and chems that it was almost difficult to breathe. Charon dragged the tainted air into his lungs and fought back Ninth Circle flashbacks with an uneasy roll of his shoulders. Leah touched the back of his hand, a small gesture, but it was enough. He nodded to indicate that he was all right; the sight of her blue eyes flashing up at him soothed his wire-taut nerves.<p>

"You'll like this place," Sinclair announced with his normal crooked grin. He inclined his head at the narrow-eyed man behind the counter and patted a female ghoul in a cowboy hat at the bar on the shoulder in a familiar greeting. "Dirty rooms, worse booze, but you'll walk out of here with a story to tell, that's for damn sure."

"Thanks for really selling the Wrangler, Sinclair," the bartender remarked unhappily. His dark eyes flickered over to Yes Man and widened immediately. "And, ah . . . who's your robot friend?"

Sinclair sent Leah a dark, almost amused look, before he turned back to the bartender with a casual shrug. "Not sure. My lady friend here was just going to introduce us. Gotta be somewhere private, though. I was hoping you'd lend a hand with that?"

"You've done us some good, Sinclair, and I'll return the favor. McCaffery's room in the corner upstairs is always available to you, you know that."

"Thanks, Garret." Sinclair gestured the others after him – something Desmond was very quickly and vocally growing tired of – and they moved as a group up the stairs and around the corner. He held the door open for all of them to file through before closing and locking it behind them.

Charon surveyed the room in cautious distaste. Leah picked at the ratty, damp bed sheets, wrinkling her nose at the stained comforter and pillows.

"You take us here for a dirty fuck, mate?" Desmond demanded with disgust.

"Don't cream yourself at the idea." Sinclair grinned and occupied the single intact chair in the room, leaving the rest of them to lean awkwardly against the wall or, even worse, perch carefully on the end of the disgusting bed. Yes Man wheeled to stand in front of Leah – whom he had presumably determined to be his new master – without missing a beat. Sinclair lit himself a cigarette before passing the box around. "We have some details to flesh out."

Leah settled on the foot of the bed, wincing when something wet began to soak through her pants. Charon rather chivalrously sat down and offered her his lap, which she gladly clambered onto. "You're right. We don't know anything about you, nor you about us. If we're going to be working together . . . perhaps it would help to share some background."

"I wasn't asking for a date, sweetheart," Sinclair chuckled dismissively. "But whatever floats your boat." He ignored her scowl and went on. "As you know, my name is Masnie Sinclair. I'm twenty-eight years old and I survived mostly on odd jobs until I got into the courier business. I took on a sort of mysterious job, but the pay was good so I thought, fuck it, why not. Back around Goodsprings, I was ambushed and shot in the head. Doc Mitch pulled my together; it's where I got my Pip-Boy." He tapped its screen, exhaled smoke, watched it fade through narrowed eyes. "Since then, I've been working toward my whole New Vegas domination goal. Now, tell me about you, doll."

Leah fidgeted awkwardly in Charon's lap, her hands clasped together between her thighs. She glanced from one expectant face to the other; only Boone seemed completely disinterested where he stood beside the door, the single person (besides Yes Man, of course) not nursing a cigarette. "Charon and I come from D.C. My father was born here, moved with the Brotherhood across the country to work on a water purifying project –,"

Arcade broke his silence with a splutter of disbelief. "That's you? Project Purity hero?" he demanded in shock.

She inclined her head. "Yes. Well, my dad did most of the work. He was the scientist. But I did what I could once he died."

Arcade nibbled on his bottom lip, an almost feminine gesture of uncertainty, tracing the bottom line of his chin. His tone was tentative. "I, ah, hear the Enclave was involved rather deeply in that."

Leah was not half as diffident. She let out a hiss of fury, blue eyes burning with rage. "The Enclave was responsible for my father's death. I killed many of their men, and I would do it again in a heartbeat."

"Whoa, okay," Sinclair cut in as Arcade stiffened in response. "Let's not get pissy, here. You were telling us more about your background, doll. Let's get back to that."

Charon's hands, warm and supportive on her arms, helped to soothe her ruffled feathers. "I helped a lot of people on the east coast, mainly the Brotherhood. They meant well, ran along with a lot of my morals, and they were noble, if a little unorganized, underfunded. Charon and I . . . we fought a battle, wiped out their competitors from Enclave to Outcast, and decided to strengthen their hold on the east, we should head west. We grabbed two vertibirds and our family and took off." She met Sinclair's even, curious gaze and shrugged. Then she glanced at Desmond and half-smiled. "Of course, we met this prick along the way. He certainly spiced up our lives for a few days there."

Desmond rolled his eyes. "All you need to know about me," he rasped gravely to Sinclair, "is that I need House dead and I'm willing to do so at any means. My story's a lot like a deathclaw's tongue –,"

"Long, messy, and you don't want to get too personal with it," Leah and Charon both finished in unison. They grinned as Desmond cursed furiously at them.

"Goddamn children, you are, taking all my thunder," he ranted, stomping his cigarette out beneath his foot.

"Ah, right," Sinclair muttered, exchanging a confused glance with Arcade before sitting up in his chair. "Can you tell me about this robot now, and how he fits in my plans?"

"We found him sitting in a cubby-hole off Benny's room," Leah explained with a helpless shrug. "Scared the living daylights out of us."

"Out of her," Charon interjected.

"Out of me. Says Benny reprogrammed him to be completely helpful to whomever needs it, and that he was going to infiltrate House's network as soon as House was out of the picture."

"Huh." Sinclair rose gracefully to his feet and began to circle the robot, thoughtfully stroking his dimpled chin. "Benny, you fat fucking genius. What kind of scheme did you cook up this time?" he remarked softly, more to himself than anyone else. He raised his voice to address Leah once more. "Did it tell you anything more than that?"

She gestured toward the robot. "Talk to him yourself. His name's Yes Man."

"Yes Man," Sinclair repeated as if testing it out.

The robot rotated to face him on the spot and that cheery voice belted out, "How may I help you, sir?"

"God," the Courier groaned, already exasperated with the machine. "Tell me what Benny was going to do next in his plan."

"Benny was going around to the other groups of the Mojave to determine which he would go to for support, which he would ignore, and which he would plan to eradicate completely."

"So he did have some brains rattling around in that big head of his. Good to know." He turned back to the others with a smile. "That's what I've been working on this past month since I got my wits back. I've managed to get a lot done, but there's still so much work to do." He began to pace back and forth, tracing his bottom lip with the pad of a wide thumb. "So far, I have all of the hotels on the Strip categorized. Vault 21 is harmless, along with the Ultra-Luxe –,"

"We solved that whole 'eating-people' problem," Arcade added with a wry smile.

"The Tops is obviously fine now," Sinclair prattled on over Leah and Charon's alarmed glance, "I'm clearing Gomorrah out. Those bastards are no good for a _new_ New Vegas. The Followers have me on a fucking pedestal. I'm wiping the Powder Gangers off the map – too messy, too unorganized. I've made contact with the Great Khans, run a few errands for them, but we're not on great terms yet. I haven't had the time to hurtle past the Boomers' little welcome jingle, and as for the NCR. . . ." He pursed his lips almost bashfully. "I'm gonna need your help with them."

Leah sighed and shook her head. "What did you do?"

"May have fucked an underage private or two."

"Shit, Sinclair! You have to give me something to work with here!"

He waved that away with a dismissive smile. "You'll do fine. You've done military work, you know how to soldier up. You and your crew'll just have to do a few favors for the NCR. They're so deep in the shit-stack right now they can't breathe, so it'll be easy to curry favor with them by relieving some of the ache, running a couple of packages, killing a few rogue Khans, whatever it takes. As long as you help me clear my name, it'll be a walk in the park; think you can do that?"

Leah chewed on her bottom lip, shared a gaze with Charon that conveyed more emotion and thought than anyone else could have imagined, and then turned back to the Courier. "Whatever it takes."

Sinclair really liked hearing that. "Goooood. Our first step is to find my sister. She's in with the Great Khans and she will be a damn godsend in getting their support. Once they're on our side, our chances in the Hoover battle will fucking double."

Leah licked her lips, shifted uncomfortably in Charon's lap. "Masnie . . ."

He regarded her with a dull glare at her use of his first name, but waited expectantly for her question.

"How good are our chances in this battle?"

The Courier looked straight at her for a long moment, blue eyes electric with a complexity she couldn't even begin to comprehend. Then he brought up his Pip-Boy and switched to its map of the Mojave, lowering his gaze to the dull, flickering screen. "We'd better get started. We've got a lot of shit to do."

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks for your patience - a lot going on in my life right now, so it's really appreciated! I was on kind of a roll before, but now I'm on a job hunt so it slowed me down for a while there. Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, put on an alert list, or even just read through a chapter!<br>DaLover, as always, good to have your reviews, as well as King1367 and Dolly-Cola :) And to Vect the Atoner, Leah certainly has no idea what kind of welcome, if any, the Mojave BoS branch will extend to her. We'll just have to see how that plays out. Thanks for clearing up the first/third gen thing. I'll admit, I never played Fallout 1 or 2 and I never quite put together all the Master's Army concept while I played through NV - I mainly go off of what I read from the wiki. I do my best to be accurate, but sometimes I don't do enough research and I'm off in the story, so thank you for pointing it out. **


	6. It's A Hard Life

"You're completely insane, you know that?"

"I've had my insane moments," Leah agreed with a tired smile.

"Like the one where I caught you two fucking in my guest bedroom?" Desmond interjected tartly.

Leah laughed and Charon let out an amused snort. "No, I was totally sane then. It was a kick to see the look on your face, Lockheart."

"I should have sicced the dogs on you when I had the chance."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Sinclair waved his hands around to interrupt them all. His blue eyes were flared wide in ill-contained shock, lips slack, dimpled jaw dropped as everyone stared at him expectantly. He pointed a long index finger from Leah to Charon and back. "You two are fucking?"

The two ghouls and Lone Wanderer wordlessly raised their eyebrows at him. Arcade choked back a laugh from across the room, hiding it in a well-timed fake cough.

Sinclair swung his finger to jab at the gray-haired doctor. "Shut up, fuck you, and what about your _fiancé_?" he demanded of Leah, rotating that accusing finger back to her. "If I knew you were willing to toss that pretty silver ring aside that easily, I'd have acted on it sooner, princess."

"I'm not," Leah laughed, reaching over to take Charon's hand in hers.

"You – I – he . . ." Sinclair seemed, for the first time since they'd met him, at a loss for words, the finger angled in Leah's direction quickly deflating at the wrist. "He's the fiancé."

"I'm the fiancé," Charon agreed with a smirk.

"_What_?"

"You really can be incredibly thick-headed," Arcade chuckled. "I've been around them a day, and I figured out they were a couple."

"Well, I've never seen them kiss or anything," Sinclair snapped, already on the defensive, "and I have never heard a single 'I love you' or 'sugar-bear' or 'sweetie-pie.'"

"And if you ever heard me call her any of those things, you should kill me," Charon advised with an almost sick expression.

"Ugh," Leah groaned. "I'd kill you myself. You're an idiot, by the way," she added cheerily to Sinclair.

Sinclair snapped his fingers impatiently at Arcade "Get me a new box of smokes, before I hit her. I'll beat a woman, I really will."

The research got dutifully to his feet and left the room as Charon let out a thunderous snarl, extremely unamused. "I will break your fingers, one at a time, if you so much as breathe on her."

"Ooo, baby, I love it when you're mean," Leah cooed, blue eyes flashing with passion.

Desmond snorted in disgust, prompting a swift kick to the back of his knees from the victim of his condescension. He cursed and then reminded Sinclair, "You were going on about how fucking insane this half-baked scheme of hers is?"

"Ha, yeah, I was," Sinclair recalled airily. "Back to how you're out of your mind, Leah: approaching the Great Khans on _foot_ is a goddamn suicide mission."

"Says who?" she shot back with an arched, challenging brow.

At that, Sinclair's mouth thinned into a slash of genuine irritation. "Says the relative of every innocent man, woman, and child that was slaughtered at Bitter Springs, doll. You've got those notes, do your homework before you bring shit to the table." Sinclair stabbed out the filter of his last cigarette, broad shoulders set under the crisp white material of his shirt, his black jacket laid carefully out beside him. Boone remained silent across the room, but shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other, his first motion at all since they'd all filtered into the small room.

"That's exactly my point, Masnie," Leah insisted, leaning forward in her enthusiasm, "they obviously and understandably have trust issues. If we come in armed to the teeth floating down in a vertibird, they're going to attack us on sight."

"Wait, so, let me get this straight," Sinclair cut her off, making her scowl. "You're not only suggesting we stroll up to them on foot, you're saying we do it _unarmed_?"

"At least visibly unarmed," she amended fervently. "We'll come in just the four of us, you, me, Charon, Desmond, arms raised above our heads, let them know we mean them no harm so that they can trust us to a civil sit-down. I don't see any other options, Masnie."

He knuckled his dimpled chin and eyed her with a very serious, very calculating stare. "What you're saying makes sense, but my gut still tells me it's a fucking mistake."

"That's because it _is_ a fucking mistake," Desmond interjected. "Your bird is going to get us killed, mate."

Charon barked out an arrogant laugh. "Please. If she hasn't gotten me killed yet, I think we'll all be fine. I trust her judgment."

"Yeah, because you're tappin' that, and we're not," Sinclair grumbled. "If you're willing to put out, doll, I'll follow you wherever your harebrained schemes take us."

Leah and Charon exchanged a look, as if actually considering it for a moment, before he shrugged halfheartedly and she shook her head.

"Wha – were you really going to say yes?" Sinclair demanded, sitting up straighter against the wall behind him.

"What an idiot."

"An absolute moron."

Desmond actually laughed as Sinclair spluttered in angry indignation.

"Fine," the Courier grudgingly agreed. "We'll go with your asinine, suicidal plan, but if it gets me killed, you owe me a new suit."

The door squeaked open and Arcade stepped into the room. He tossed Sinclair a new box of cigarettes with a smile. "Got your smokes!"

Sinclair lobbed them back with a short, "Keep 'em." Arcade didn't have time to duck and the box hit him straight in the forehead, knocking his glasses from his face. He muttered a few juicy, furious curses as the Courier rose to his feet, swinging his jacket over a shoulder. "I'll meet you tomorrow at the Tops and we'll figure out the logistics. Enjoy your night off, princess, and don't stay up too late." He raised his eyebrows rather pointedly at Leah and Charon before gesturing Boone and Arcade after him. He yanked open the door, stepping dismissively around Arcade as he scrambled to pick up his glasses, but paused before leaving. "I'll be there at noon tomorrow. None of this early morning shit, because I am going to get drunk tonight and waking up early tomorrow morning will literally be impossible for me. It'll kill me. Swear to God." He threw his hands up and then sailed out, his companions trailing faithfully on his heels. "Have lunch ready, too!" he ordered over his shoulder and then his footsteps faded behind him.

Leah threaded her fingers into her hair. She'd thought Desmond Lockheart was a pain in the ass to work with, she really had.

Then again . . . that was before Masnie Sinclair.

* * *

><p>The family was up and waiting for them when they reached the suite. Most of them were spread about the dining and living rooms, laughing and chatting about the day. Charon headed across the hall for a shower, to "wash the shitty bar fumes" off of his skin, while Desmond stepped out to have "a cigarette or seven." Yes Man had, on Leah's none-too-subtle suggestion, wheeled back into his hidey-hole to power down for the night.<p>

Leah stayed in the suite with her family. Despite the hours she'd just spent cooped up, the stress growing with each second that passed, she sat down on the ratty couch between Éclair and Sue and listened to them spew out stories about the day, shouting over each other in their excitement.

Gob and Nova, bless their souls, had taken them all around the strip. They showed Leah souvenirs from Vault 21 that they'd purchased; the older ones had snuck into casinos and stolen away with chips from each one. Only Peter had managed to nick two from the illusive Ultra-Luxe, and he had no problem gloating loudly about it to his siblings. His arrogance was somewhat dampened by the fact that he'd given one to Bumble to cheer her up from the fact that she'd been too little to get into any of the casinos; he'd been quick to hush her up from telling the others, to preserve his "asshole badassery."

Nova, who had become over the length of the day "Aunty Nova," (much to her dread; "I'm too young to be an aunty") had taught all of the little monsters how to gamble and they were hosting poker games all over the room using the small handful of chips at their disposal. They'd gathered other small objects around the room for currency, ranging from bottle caps to beads off of the room's lampshades.

Leah watched on in tired amusement, slowly picking at a plate of cold squirrel meat that Lucy had put together. Gob and Nova excused themselves to bed. Bumble looked about ready to pass out herself. Leah put her plate aside, swept her up and toted her to the bathroom, nudging her toward the shower. When she padded back out, Leah sat her between her legs on the couch and ran her old brush through the girl's long, dark hair.

"My father used to do this for me, when I was little," she murmured with a reminiscent smile. "He had the gentlest touch."

"Mmn, you're pretty good at it, too," Bumble approved sleepily.

Leah put down the brush and ran her hands through the dark tresses, letting the slick strands trickle tangle-free over her fingers. She rested her chin on the girl's shoulder and exhaled, long and slow, feeling the stress leave her body in that deep, soothing breath.

Bumble yawned and slumped against Leah's chest. She was asleep in minutes. Leah smiled and pulled her up into her arms. "Hey. Nick."

The lanky teen looked up at her from the table with a cocked eyebrow. "What's up?"

"Where does Bumble sleep?"

"On the floor, like the rest of us. We decided to take turns on the couch. Ladies first, of course." He shot her a shit-eating grin.

"Nice to know you've learned _something_, you little shit." Leah hitched the sleeping girl higher up in her arms. "You kids are packed tighter than anchovies in here. I'll talk to Swank first thing in the morning, get you guys another room or two."

"Or five or six," he retorted, smirking.

Leah laughed as she tucked Bumble in with a blanket and a pillow on the couch. "Maybe you're right," she agreed quietly, before kissing the girl on the forehead and drifting out of the suite. "Don't stay up too late, children."

They all groaned in a unified response. Still smiling, Leah trudged into her own suite. The shower was still running, and she stood in the doorway to the bedroom vacillating between slipping into the water with him or just falling face forward onto the bed and never getting back up. As much as she knew a nice, hot shower with her very skilled and well-endowed fiancé would feel great, her body had other plans. She collapsed, rather gracelessly, onto the bed, and the instant she hit the sheets she knew that sleep was going to be the victor tonight.

* * *

><p>"You're so classy, Sinclair. I'm absolutely shocked Leah hasn't ripped her clothes off and thrown herself at your feet already."<p>

"It's a complete mystery," Sinclair agreed, throwing Arcade a shrewd glance over his shoulder, "and nobody likes a sarcastic asshole, Gannon. Do you like a sarcastic asshole, Boone?"

"Not unless he's a good one."

"Ha. You're clever, you know that?"

The three men slipped into the well-lit casino of the Lucky 38 – honest to God, it was always fucking lit, and nobody even fucking gambled there – and headed briskly for the elevator. Sinclair stuffed his hands into his pockets as he stepped into the elevator. Just before the doors shut, Victor slid one of his arms between them. They opened back up automatically and Sinclair narrowed his eyes at the robot.

"What is it, V?"

"Mr. House would like to see you, pardner," Victor reported cheerily.

_Fuck robots and fuck how they're always happy. _"Sure, I'll go see him right away, buddy. You gonna let the doors close now?"

The robot wordlessly wheeled away, allowing the elevator to close and begin to rumble upward. Sinclair straightened his collar with an uncomfortable tug at the material. "I don't trust that thing," he muttered offhandedly to his companions.

"Robots you can trust," Boone offered unexpectedly, startling the other two men. "They're programmed to do what you say. It's humans you can't count on."

Sinclair fell quiet, a somewhat pleasant break from his normal prattling on about this-or-that. If Arcade Gannon had to label his silence, he would call it 'thoughtful,' maybe even 'pensive,' which was saying something about the normally impulsive Courier. Sinclair nodded almost decisively, opening his mouth to speak, but then the elevator doors opened with a ding and he changed his mind. Instead of saying whatever was on his mind, he pushed the two men out of the elevator and stabbed the button to close the doors immediately behind them, disappearing before they could even ask.

Then again, knowing him, maybe it was better they didn't.

* * *

><p>Charon stayed in the shower until the water ran cold and all memories of the Ninth Circle had been purged from his head. He toweled off and rubbed the material over the remainder of hair on his head before pulling his pants on. "Leah?" When there was no answer, he tossed the towel aside and proceeded into the bedroom.<p>

He found Leah already knocked out on the bed, curled up on her side, still in her T-shirt and jeans. With a wry smile, he crossed to her side of the bed and began to slide her shirt up over her head. She moaned, eyelids fluttering, and barely scraped together the energy to lift her arms and help him. One of her eyes peeked open and she grinned when she saw his bare chest.

"Something tells me you are a little too tired to fuck tonight, smoothskin," he observed with a smirk, discarding her shirt and reaching for the button of her pants.

"Mmn, but what a sight," she mumbled, closing her eye again. "And I love it when you say 'fuck.'"

He rolled his eyes and grabbed her jeans by the material at her ankles, tugging them off with short, impatient jerks.

"Don't ignore me. Remember the last time you said I was too tired to have sex with you?"

Charon arched the remains of a brow at her, but he couldn't deny that he _did_ remember– hell, it would be impossible to forget that night. "The second time we made love," he recalled easily. "When you attacked me in the middle of the night."

"Hardly attacked," she snorted, fumbling weakly for the button of his pants. "More like, gently coerced into sexual activity."

"Tomato, toe-mah-toe," he replied, finally unhooking her pants from around her ankles. He slapped her hands away from his pants, but she'd managed to already unbuckle them.

"You know, people keep saying that, but has anyone ever actually _seen_ a tomato?" She peeked that eye open again and there was reluctance in the blue of her pupil. "Also, you might be right."

"I normally am, but what about this time?"

"The whole being-too-tired-to-fuck . . . thing."

He chuckled and settled down onto the bed beside her, angling her back against his chest. She sighed, content, enjoying the feeling of his warm, rough skin. "_Mo ghrá_?"

His silence was sizzling with confusion.

"'My love,'" she explained through a yawn.

"Ah. Then what is it?"

"Am I a bad parent for allowing my children to gamble?"

Charon snorted, one of those arrogant actions that never failed to make her smile. "There are a few worse things they could be doing, don't you think, smoothskin?"

She hummed vaguely in response, still swimming through the thick fog of fatigue. A hand brushed her hair away from her neck and then she felt rough lips, murmuring breathily against the sensitive skin of her throat, a sharp nip, soft kisses.

"You're tense," he noted as he traced the hard line of her shoulders. "What's on your mind?"

"Do you think my plan is suicidal?"

"Hmm." He pressed his cheek gently against hers, listened to the soft sound of her breathing. "I can't know until we actually go through with it, but I see no other way to go about things. We will have to let the chips fall where they may."

"God, I don't like doing that."

"Neither do I, smoothskin, but at this point, it seems our only option."

Her lips curled up into a lazy, crooked smile. "If you'll be there, then I have no worries at all."

He chuckled. "Foolish, but I appreciate the sentiment."

"Hey," she whispered after a long, comfortable moment of silence, which her ghoul passed by lavishing her throat, neck, and the sensitive shell of her ear with attention, "remind me to go see Swank tomorrow morning."

She felt Charon stiffen behind her. "I do not think you should be flirting with him any more than necessary, smoothskin," he commented unhappily.

"It's for the kids. They're so crowded in that one suite and Desmond is getting on everybody's nerves, so he needs his own room, too. I wouldn't do it otherwise."

Charon sighed. "Sometimes I hate that big heart of yours, smoothskin," he rumbled and the vibration was wonderful against her throat.

A smile spread across her lips. "Sometimes, I do, too. But where else would I keep all of my love for you, _mo ghrá_?"

A husky chuckle, warm, like leather. "I'm sure you would find a place among the rest of the clutter you collect."

Leah rolled onto her back so that she could meet his gaze, reach up and touch his cheek, share a smile with him. "I can hardly stuff it away with the spare rifle parts and old electronics. It's gotta be the heart." Her smile turned into a scowl. "And I don't hoard like that anymore. Dick."

"And there's the huge bitch I fell in love with," he commented with a smirk and he stifled her furious retort with a kiss tender enough to tug at her exhausted heartstrings, enough to stir emotions slow, steady, deep within her like roiling heat . . . enough to end all conversation for the night.

* * *

><p>"You did well getting the chip back from the Chairman. Give it here."<p>

Sinclair twirled the little silver circle in his hand, felt the power of it, almost thrumming in his palm. His gaze flickered back up at House, at that passive fucking screen, the arched brow, that condescending curve to his lips. He hated that fucking screen, hated House and every single one of his godforsaken robots, and as much as he wanted to snap the chip in half, short-circuit all of the robots, and take a long, satisfying piss on House's dignified screen, he restrained himself. He needed House, for now, needed the commodities at the Lucky 38 and a safe place for his companions to stay in their downtime.

So Sinclair placed the little silver chip onto the lip of a whirring machine below House's face and stepped back, eyeing the screen mistrustfully.

"Thank you. I have the next task for you to complete."

"I can't wait," the Courier deadpanned through a tight, thin smile.

"I'll ignore your insolence for now because I require your assistance, but should it continue, I will not hesitate to rid the world of your cheek and find someone else to get the job done. It has come to my attention that you've been meeting with a woman from the east coast, a rather influential and powerful woman who I am sure could be coerced to finish the job."

Sinclair went stiff at the mention of Leah, but he smoothed his surprise over with one of his charming smiles. "Hardly. If I'm having such a hard time getting her into my bed, I wish you good luck convincing her to do your legwork, House. What's the next job?"

"Let us take this to the basement. I have something to show you –,"

"If you're going to kill me, I am going to take a whole lot of your robots down with me," Sinclair cut him off in a hiss, eyes narrowed, hand twitching for his .44.

House's screen glowed brightly for a moment before returning to its normal shine, as if he was expressing his anger. "If I wanted you dead, I would have done it long ago, and I would not bother luring you into a trap when I could get rid of you – and your companions – at any time."

Sinclair fell silent at the reminder of his vulnerability, and the vulnerability of his friends. His pride throbbed in pain.

"Good. Now, to the basement, shall we?"

* * *

><p>His head swimming with images of Gatling lasers and Securitrons and Mr. House's arrogant, brow-arching fucking face, Sinclair returned to the presidential suite. He was very pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful woman waiting for him at the dining room table between an extremely inebriated Cass and a half-irritated, half-amused Arcade Gannon.<p>

"Brought somethin' for ya from Gomorrah," the redhead slurred through a crooked grin.

"Normally I'd loose some snotty remark about your gratuitous sex life, but after the hours we just spent cooped up in that hellhole, I say you deserve it."

"Lord forbid I do something Arcade Gannon doesn't approve of," Sinclair replied absentmindedly, extending a hand to help the lady up from her seat. She uncrossed her long, smooth legs and rose to her full height, taking his offered hand. She was blonde and she was buxom and, judging by the graceful way she walked, she would hopefully be very bendy. "You," he announced, lazily pointing at Cass after he draped his arm around the woman's shoulder, "you're getting a raise."

"But you don't even pay me!"

"To my bedchambers," Sinclair invited the blonde with a charming smile.

She agreed through a giggle, looking charmed.

Moments later, when he was travelling at a great pace through the scarce clothing on his guest's curvy body and she seemed mighty pleased with his progress, Sinclair let himself stop worrying for a moment and fall into the comfort of making love with a woman he didn't know at all, because there would always be time to worry about things tomorrow, House and his robots and their Gatling lasers be damned.

* * *

><p>Leah patted her back pocket to ensure her keys were there, took a quick glimpse of her reflection in the mirror above the bar, then slid her Blackhawk into its holster at her side and headed for the door.<p>

Charon grabbed her by the arm when she tried to pass and spun her around, pressing her up against the wall and smothering her surprised gasp with his mouth on hers. Her moan got lost in their kiss, until finally the shock wore off and she was able to clutch at his armor and respond to his passion.

Then Charon abruptly released her and stepped away, hardly able to contain his smirk. "Have fun, smoothskin," he added casually over his shoulder as he turned and walked back to collect their weapons from the bedroom.

Leah pressed her fingertips to her lips, which were slowly tilting up into a smile. "'Bye, honey, have a good day at work' to you, too," she teased with a laugh as she disappeared through the door and down the hallway. After the short elevator ride, during which Leah let herself sort of appreciate her ghoul's possessive side, Leah sailed down the hallway into the main casino. Even this early in the morning, there were gamblers lounging at tables and slot machines and jazzy, big band music was blaring out from the speakers within The Aces. Two women with cheeks pinked from dancing swung out of the club and Leah paused to peek in before the doors closed behind them.

Amid the dancing bodies, a man in an orange suit was having a heated discussion with another man, who was clearly his employee judging by his sheepish docility. Orange Suit turned around and threw his hands up in the air, exposing to Leah that he was a rather handsome black man with slick hair and an eye-patch. She caught his eye and they shared a puzzled expression before the doors closed between them and the booming music was muted to a dull background beat.

Humming in mild interest to herself, Leah angled herself toward the front and took off down the stairs. The music rose again in volume, alerting her to the fact that someone else was leaving The Aces, and she turned to see Orange Suit come jogging after her.

"Excuse me," he called in a pleasant, rumbling baritone as he caught up to her, "excuse me, ma'am, could I have a second?"

"You can have a few," Leah allowed with a gracious smile. "I recognize you, from the band that was playing the other night."

Orange Suit was mighty pleased to hear that. "You sure do, baby doll. I'm Tommy Torini, owner and operator of The Aces theater, and lead vocals of the Rad Pack Revue. We play every night from eight to midnight."

They shook hands and she offered him an expectant grin. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Torini. My name's Leah. How can I help you?"

Tommy gave her a once-over, not lusty or condescending, more like he had found something he'd been looking for. "Leah, you look like someone who can get a job done, and quickly."

She laughed, feigning embarrassment. "What gave me away? Is it the leather armor? I knew I should have gone for jeans and a T-shirt today."

Tommy laughed right along with her, but shook his head. "It's not the armor, baby, or the high-quality gun hangin' from your hip. It's the way you walk, like you got somewhere to be and ain't nobody gonna stop you from getting' there, you dig?"

"All right, smooth-talker," she challenged with a smirk, "what's your angle?"

"I might have a business-adventure proposal for you."

"And I might be interested."

"Good, good. You see . . ." His smile faltered for a moment, "The Aces may seem like a pretty swingin' place, but that's only when we have acts to play. The Rad Pack Revue only plays from eight to midnight, otherwise people'd get mighty tired of hearin' us jam, and I only have a two-bit comedian and one other singer to make up for the rest of the day."

"You're starving for talent," Leah finished knowingly.

"Exactly, doll. I know I'm reachin' out on a limb here by running up to some pretty girl I don't even know, but something about the look of you, your confidence, it makes me feel like you'd be able to find me some real hard talent. And I'd be willin' to pay some pretty big bucks!"

"If you know where I'd need to look, and if you could be patient, because I have a lot of shit on my plate right now, then I could definitely take you up on the offer."

"It's a yes to both of those qualifications."

Leah grinned. "Then . . . all systems go, Mr. Torini. I've got to go meet with Swank, but I'll be back once I'm done."

"The list will be ready, doll." He shot her a wink with his good eye before turning on his heel and striding away.

Leah felt great as she sashayed toward the front counter. She had her family, she had a job, she had new friends, and she had a plan.

Swank held his arms out as she approached and greeted her with a long, tight hug. "Leah, _baby_, anybody ever tell you how _good_ you look in leather?"

And Leah laughed, because she did look pretty damn good in leather. She glanced down at her Pip-Boy to check the time – still pretty early in the morning, plenty of time to chat up Swank for extra rooms, get the coordinates from Tommy, rush back upstairs to ask Éclair to prepare lunch for everyone, then hightail it to her suite to get back at her ghoul for that unexpected display of affection earlier.

Lord knew she'd need it if she had to have a sit down with Masnie in a few hours.

* * *

><p>Charon may have had his back to the bedroom door as he worked his way through weapon maintenance on every last gun in their arsenal, but that didn't mean he couldn't hear the door squeak open and click shut again. He couldn't contain a small, triumphant smile. "How did things go, smoothskin?"<p>

There was the thin, feminine sound of a throat being cleared as his only response.

"Is that all you have to say?" he asked, turning around with a smirk already on his face.

God, she was beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed pink, silky black hair pinned up high on the back of her head. Soft lips tugged up into a challenging smile to match his own. "I've also got this," she quipped, and then she launched herself at him. They tumbled backward onto the bed, landing among piles of weapons and ammunition. Flailing arms pushed the various metal objects off of the bed and then set to removing armor.

"We have two hours," Leah gasped, ripping the plates of armor from his chest.

Charon shot her a devious grin. "And we'll use every last goddamn minute of it."

* * *

><p>The Courier was seated at the table in the Tops presidential suite, picking halfheartedly at the medium rare brahmin steak in front of him, legs loosely crossed. He had the air of someone who was running through old memories, a reminiscent air, a quiet air.<p>

The Lone Wanderer sat comfortably beside him, the eraser of a pencil tapping against her teeth as she reread through notes about the Great Khans. An empty page was laid out in front of her, where she would occasionally scribble something new down, or draw a diagram, sometimes asking Sinclair how a place was laid out just to make sure. Charon had another pad of paper open in front of him, loosely looking through maps Leah had drawn earlier of the Mojave to plan out their movements.

"This is all fine," Leah said abruptly, shoving her notebook away from her. She looked up and met the Courier's curious gaze and there was something about the tight line of her mouth that gave him the impression she was about to piss him off. "But it's not just the Great Khans we need to know about."

Sinclair lifted a dark eyebrow and studied her in that unnerving way he had of staring you down. "Oh?"

Leah nodded slowly. "Masnie, I need to know more about your sister, too."

"Ah." He shifted so that his elbows were resting on the table and swallowed hard. "I guess you would need to, wouldn't you?"

"I don't mean to pry or anything, but what if we go through all this trouble just to talk with her and she . . . doesn't want to come home?"

"It's highly possible," he agreed softly, his eyes drifting to the ceiling until he was no longer even in the room with them. Then his gaze refocused and he shook his head. "We didn't leave on good terms."

"How long has it been?" Leah asked gently, briefly touching his hand.

He drew his hands back down into his lap, but answered, "Eight years. It's been eight years since I've seen my little sister. My family . . . my mother . . . ." He cleared his throat and sat up straighter in his chair. "This is going to be a long story, princess."

"I'm ready," she prompted, taking Charon's hand in her lap.

"Good. It all starts out when I was just a little kid. . . ."

* * *

><p>As Sinclair spoke, he could see it all in his mind's eye: his mother, Amalia, so young, blonde and beautiful and cold as stone, pining for a husband who had left before Sinclair was even born. That was the reason for the name. <em>Masnie<em>. His mother had been lonely, and so, vindictive, spiteful, fragile as she was, she had decided that her son, too, would always be lonely, from the day he was born. It was cruel and it was selfish, but then that was the type of woman she was. She clung to his father's memory until it was all she had left, and not even the Med-X or the nameless, strange men could comfort the hole it left anymore. Four years, he'd been gone, and all she had now was her child son and a swollen belly.

She'd worked Sinclair to the bone. She gave him life, she always told him, and so he owed his life to her, cleaning, cooking, taking care of her when she would pass out drunk or OD on the kitchen floor. When she got pregnant again, she tried to turn over a new leaf and it was the happiest Sinclair could remember either of them being. It was just the three of them, him and his unborn sister and his broken mother, and they were family in those nine months of her gestation. He'd loved his mother. She was the only person he had to love.

And then his sister was born, a pretty baby girl with bright blue eyes like her mother and brother and she didn't cry when she was born and Sinclair had loved that about her. But her birth became their mother's downfall once more. She descended again into the depression and the drug abuse and the promiscuity and Sinclair was only just a child, but he had to take care of his infant sister, because he loved her, too.

They'd lived under their mother's hold for fifteen more years. She had a weak soul, Amalia Sinclair, but her cruelty was strong, and her children suffered for it, doing their best to keep her alive when she was doing her best to give up life altogether. Sinclair watched her grow weaker, frailer, and he watched his sister grow up into a beautiful, strong woman and he knew with each day that passed he had to get them out of there, before their mother took them down as well.

And so, when he was just nineteen, Sinclair grabbed his sister and he stole away with her in the midst of the night, while their mother was dead to the world in numb, dreamless sleep. For a year, they lived together, travelling, learning to take care of themselves in the wastes. They found a new family, in a town in the shadow of a dinosaur, and the old man and woman took them in with open arms.

Sinclair watched his sister sleep that night, so pretty and sweet and innocent, and he knew that, as much as he loved her, he couldn't stay with her. This house, this family, they had room for only one more, and it would not be him. He'd never gotten a chance to have a loving family, but she was still young enough to have hers. And so, just like before, he packed his things and left in the middle of the night.

Over the years, he gathered friends and he gathered power. He kept tabs on her, through messengers and spies, to make sure she was healthy and happy and his dreams, his goals, to make the Mojave a better place . . . it would be a lie to say it wasn't with her in mind the whole time. He'd always half hoped to see her again, but the thought always scared him. What would she think of him now? Did she hate him? Did she hope he was dead?

It was up to him to find out. Because they shared a name, and they shared a curse, he and his little sister.

_Niella_.

* * *

><p>Sinclair stopped speaking and the silence was deafening. He cleared his throat and got to his feet, sliding his chair politely in after himself. His face was stoic as he looked at them. "So I was thinking we would leave for Red Rock in a couple of days or so. I need some time to prepare, in case things do go south while we're out there." He stopped at the door and glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, and come over sometime tomorrow, and dress for a work out. You need to practice your hand-to-hand-combat."<p>

Leah watched him go with moisture collecting in her eyes. The door closed behind him and she gasped as the tears brimmed over and started to slide down her cheeks. "Oh, God," she whispered, looking to Charon with wide, horrified eyes.

Charon collected her up into his arms and kissed her hair. "Yes, I know, smoothskin. It's a sad story. But we can give it a happy ending."

She wiped her nose and nodded against his shoulder. "We can," she agreed softly. "And we will, whatever it takes."

He stroked her back as he stared off into the distance, his brow furrowed in deep thought. "Why do you need to work on your hand-to-hand?"

"I dunno," she mumbled with a shrug, drying her eyes. "The Khans are all about strength and endurance. Maybe I'll need it for something."

"Yes, but why you specifically?"

"I don't know, Charon. I'll ask him tomorrow."

"Hmph." He cuddled her closer and pressed his cheek against hers, humming thoughtfully. "He never told us what her name means," he muttered curiously.

Leah pulled away and her eyes were sad. "He didn't have to," she whispered back. "If her name is like his, then if you switch it around you get 'allein.'"

His eyes flared knowingly as he worked it out. "Oh. That's . . . so . . . ."

"Sad," she murmured, settling against his shoulder once more. "But it kind of fits their story, doesn't it? Masnie and Niella, no parents, no home. Lonely, and alone."

* * *

><p><strong>DaLover, Alice, king1367, and Dolly-Cola: thank you for the reviews! Alice, glad you like the series and as for your question, I just made up the REAPER on the spot haha. I thought it sounded ominous and cool in Mass Effect, so I stole the name and made up a weapon. Thanks for the compliments :)<strong>


	7. Red, Red Sun

The night sky stretched on and on above her, painted with spatters of twinkling stars, so many they lit up the darkness from horizon to horizon. The moon cracked the deep blue heavens, peering rays of glistening light across the desert. She turned her face to the sky, feeling insignificant. She was nothing more than a speck of dust suspended between two immovable planes. It would be so easy to just waste away out here, in the middle of nowhere and nothing. The sprawling miles of endless dirt and dust, the beating of the sun on your back in the days, and the howling winds of dust storms chilling your bones at night . . . It was enough to unravel even the most resilient of minds, the most steadfast of hearts. She existed alone, and was responsible for no one. It was liberating, and it made her feel strong, to walk the Wastes and to defy them.

Her things gathered, she pulled her pack onto her shoulders and once again began her march, guided by the unwavering moon.

* * *

><p>The sun was just beginning to touch the morning sky, and the Mojave slumbered. Honey golden light spilled over the edge of the horizon. From under the blanket of dawn, the restless city of New Vegas began to stir. Tired eyes blinked open, heads throbbing with confusion, and people rolled out of strange beds, climbed out of dumpsters, emerged from a tent out back of Gomorrah and stepped into the New Vegas sun to face the new day's mistakes. More hapless souls filtered into the strip, chasing dopamine and dreams. Lather, rinse, repeat, and New Vegas rumbled on.<p>

This particularly beautiful morning found the Courier burying his face deeper into his pillow to escape the rays of sunlight piercing the shattered windows of the Lucky 38 lounge. A low, irritated growl rumbled in his throat as he lifted his sleep-addled head and inspected his surroundings through squinting eyes. His vision blurred, he could only just make out the shape of a female body pulling clothes on, disappearing quickly behind the elevator doors. He lifted himself to his knees, gathering memories slowly from the night before. They were pleasant ones.

He wasn't sure how exactly he and his female companion had found themselves fucking in the cocktail lounge, but everything after that point was nice and vivid. He savored the lingering sense of pride and sexual satisfaction as he collected his clothing, strewn around an impressively wide area of the lounge. It had been a very active lovemaking. For a little while, he indulged himself with the thought of telling everyone in the suite all about it, just because he loved their reactions so very much. The look of severe discomfort on Gannon's face . . . yeah, that was great. And Boone, that stoic, thick-jawed mug of his, trying so hard to stay passive. Raul always just laughed.

By the time Sinclair decided he would indeed over-share again today, he was stepping out into the lobby of his presidential suite. He headed absently for the kitchen, hoping Veronica had made coffee. He spotted a mug already filled on the counter and made a beeline for it, shouting over his shoulder, "Hey, everybody, come in here. You won't believe how amazing my night was."

Someone behind him cleared her throat, and he turned with a cocked eyebrow. He got the wide variety of expressive reactions he'd been hoping for, but not the ones he'd imagined. Cass was awake despite the hour, chuckling smugly, slouching low in her chair and looking to be about as hungover as he felt. Veronica sat beside her, arms crossed over her chest, pouting in that combination of frustration and disappointment that was so common on her expression when it came to him. He supposed it had something to do with the little crush she had on their guest this morning, who was watching him with some amusement.

Leah glanced down at the Pip-Boy on her wrist and hummed deep in her throat. "I suppose that means you forgot about our training this morning."

"_No_," he insisted immediately, a child caught doing something he oughtn't, "I left _my_ Pip-Boy back in my bedroom and didn't have an alarm to wake me up. Unfortunately I was forced to rely on my internal clock, which may or may not despise and/or reject the idea of mornings entirely."

Veronica scowled, but Cass was still laughing. Leah glared at him thoughtfully for a bit before she got to her feet. "Fine. But if you think that gets you out of training today, you're dead wrong. You have five minutes. I'll be waiting in the basement."

And then she was marching determinedly out of the room, her ponytail bouncing indignantly behind her.

Sinclair scowled at his companions. "Shut up before you even say anything. I'm gonna go kick Leah's ass now, but expect a very loud and detailed account of my sexual conquest later."

The girls sighed in disappointment, but truth be told, they should have known better by now. Win or lose, Masnie Sinclair always got the last word.

* * *

><p>"Can I go, Charon? Please, please, <em>pleeeeease<em>?"

The rigid ghoul glared down at his honorary daughter, arms crossed over his broad chest, and she had to give it to him, it was a truly intimidating stance. Cloudy blue eyes flickered over to the super mutants standing in the doorway, their strained grins obviously appealing to him with all that they had. Eventually he sighed and waved a dismissive hand. "Fine. I can't see you getting into too much trouble with those two."

"Yes!" Sue cheered, snatching her bag up and heading for the door.

"Lucy goes with you," Charon added firmly over her celebration. "I think she needs to get out of this place for a while."

Sue looked about to argue, but the look on his face made it clear it was not up for discussion. "Fine," she grumbled back at him.

"Maybe she can help you with your new .357," he suggested pointedly, knowing she needed the practice.

Her expression quirked up at the idea and she left the room after the super mutants with some pep in her step.

"We will protect them with our lives, old friend!" Fawkes announced cheerfully, patting the Gatling laser nestled always so comfortably at his side.

Charon nodded, silently eyeing Lily as the purple super mutant cooed over all of his children. She seemed to be in high heaven in their company. Leah would think it was sweet. He was just grateful there was another superhuman being working to keep their pack of runts safe. He was good, but with only one of him and eleven of them, even he could run into trouble keeping them all together and out of harm's way.

He rumbled gruffly deep in his throat as he lit a cigarette. _Not sure how I ended up being the one caring for the children while the smoothskin gets to wrestle couriers all day._ The image certainly put a scowl on his face, which is how Desmond and Gob found him, puffs of smoke churning out from the cigarette perched within his pout.

"Your face is going to wrinkle if you keep that surly attitude up," Desmond advised tartly.

"Come exploring with us!" Gob invited him with an enthusiastic smile. "Nova and RJ have the kids today. Let's go see what's out there."

Charon's eyes found the clock above the door, and Desmond read his mind like a book.

"Our favorite little vault princess won't be home for another couple of hours," he interjected with a cruel smile. "I think you'll survive without her for the time being."

There was another silent moment of deliberation before a wicked grin split the larger ghoul's face. "All right," he agreed as he slung his Terrible Shotgun onto his back. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>Sinclair was straightening the sleeves of his T-shirt when the elevator doors opened, and he stepped out with a sigh. "Look, I'm sorry if you got your panties all bunched up, but if we didn't schedule these things in the morning, I'd never be la -,"<p>

The rest of the word was lost in his throat, because his wrist was suddenly caught in a tight grasp and he was flipped over a small body onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, gathering his senses. Leah's smiling face popped into his vision, her long braid swinging down over his head.

"No hard feelings," she reassured him.

His legs swung around and dropped Leah hard onto her ass. Her smile had soured into a scowl, and she jerked angrily back up onto her feet, bringing her arms up in just enough time to block his next strike. She evaded his hits, moving backward and quickly running out of mat. When her bare foot hit cold tile, she wavered and Sinclair landed a hit sharp against the side of her ribs. She hissed as she pivoted out of his reach, giving herself a moment to regain her footing.

He smiled that infuriating smile she hated to see on that stupid handsome face. She came at him with a fury, every swing of her fists batted away, every kick she threw ducked under or deflected until his hands caught her leg and yanked her off-balance. She fell onto the mats, the wind knocked out of her. Her ankles hooked around his and she twisted with all of her might, bringing him tumbling down after her. He struggled to block her incoming kicks with his free arm and one of them landed, catching him in the chin and knocking his head back hard.

Satisfied she'd finally made contact, Leah rolled away and they both vaulted back onto their feet. Sinclair gave her no time to catch her breath, lunging at her with merciless speed. She resisted his attacks as best she could, but each strike she blocked with her forearms was faster than the last, knocking her arms closer and closer to her body until he slipped past her defenses and the edge of his hand slammed against her side. She yelped in pain and parried away from him.

"The Khans aren't gonna take it easy on you just because you're pretty," he taunted her breathlessly.

Leah's eyes narrowed as a response, but she was satisfied to hear he was just as winded as she was. She lowered into a crouch, lifting onto the balls of her feet, then ran at him again. His footsteps mirrored hers, taking him out of her reach with every hit he deflected. She spun to gain momentum and whirled another kick at him. His arm caught her leg to his side, he pivoted, and his free hand slammed into her solar plexus, forcefully knocking her to the ground.

Leah swung her legs and lifted herself back up to her feet, her braid flying up and over her shoulder. She glared at him through narrowed eyes, her ribs and side where he had hit her throbbing in pain. Her heart hammered furiously behind her ribcage as she fought to catch her breath.

"What, you finished already, princess?"

She exhaled incredulously, shaking her head with determination. "Not even close."

* * *

><p>Bullets whizzed by in a scattered barrage, ricocheting off of the broken metal roofing that was their cover.<p>

"Angry lot, aren't they?" Desmond rasped, reloading his sniper rifle.

Charon growled a bloodthirsty chuckle, deep in his throat. "Reminds me of home." He glanced over their cover and spotted another shed not twenty feet from their current cover. "Gob, I'm moving in to get closer. You coming with me?"

Gob nodded soundlessly. He felt more self-assured about his battle skills now than he did three years ago, but watching Vargas fall at the Outcast battle had shaken his confidence. This had not gone unnoticed by Charon, who wanted his friend back in fighting shape.

"I'll cover you, but don't dally," Desmond muttered, pulling the trigger and snuffing out another life.

Charon shifted up onto his feet, crouching low, his shotgun raised up against his chest. He waited for a break in the gunfire before rounding the corner and springing into a full run, dashing across the open area and sliding to a stop behind the next cover. Gob was close behind him, his momentum slamming him safely against the metal wall.

The rabid humans immediately started moving closer to them, screaming taunts and insults. Charon vaulted over a windowsill to the interior of the shack, rising to his full height just in time to greet one of them with his shotgun as he came up to the open doorway. Gob pressed his back beside the opposite window, turning to shoot his Chinese assault rifle at the oncoming swarm of fiends.

The sound of Desmond's sniper rifle rang out over the open field, each resounding shot followed by the dropping of another body into the dust. Fiends that were bold enough to approach the shack directly were quickly ferried into the underworld by Charon and his terrible shotgun. One of them had managed to make it all the way to the window while Gob was reloading, and he leapt into the shack with a wild cry. He brandished a machete, slashing at Charon, who ducked under his swing and narrowly avoided the blade. Gob, rifle still not reloaded, simply lifted the weapon and slammed the butt of it down into the back of the fiend's head. Both men watched him drop like a ton of bricks between them, thoroughly taken care of.

Charon lifted an impressed eyebrow at the smaller ghoul, smirking with wordless approval before turning back to the door to fend more of them off. Their numbers had dwindled, and the last two ran at them with melee weapons, having burned through all of their ammo.

Feeling indulgent, Charon stowed his shotgun on his back and awaited them with his combat blade and a cruel smile. The first, a thin, sickly woman, lunged at him with a lead pipe. He sidestepped her attack, swept her legs out from under her and plunged his knife deep into her throat. The second fiend had reached them now, bloodshot eyes widened and enraged. Charon yanked his blade back out and in one swinging motion slit open the last fiend's throat. The drugged-out human fell still, fear touching his crazed eyes, his blade still raised above his head. Then he dropped down into the dust, and for a moment, all was quiet.

"Well," Desmond finally said, coming out from behind cover and straightening his glasses. "That was a dramatic finish."

Charon was laughing under his breath as he wiped the blood from his knife on his pants. "Leah always likes to hear my combat stories later. The more extravagant the story, the more . . . _impressed_ she is."

Desmond put a hand on the taller ghoul's shoulder and nodded. "Truly a noble pursuit."

Gob snorted, fishing chems from the pockets of the fallen fiends. "You guys gonna help me loot or are we going back home empty-handed?"

They ransacked the entire makeshift campsite, collecting a wide variety and sizable amount of chems. Their pockets full of loot, bloodlusts sated, the men turned back for the Strip and started the long walk home.

* * *

><p>Leah inhaled gasps of air, her muscles screaming in protest, the taste of blood coppery at the back of her throat. Sinclair was pushing her harder than any of their previous bouts, pulling no punches, and her body was sore all over to show for it. He almost landed another hit to her stomach, and Leah decided she'd had enough. She pushed back against him, twisting her arms loose of his reach and blocking an incoming kick. Her hand struck with blinding speed, knocking his head back, and then she slammed her body into his, sending him flying to the floor. She was on him in a half second's time, one hand pinning his arm down and the other suspended above his face, her fist trembling just centimeters from his eyes.<p>

They sat like that for a moment, lost in the adrenaline. Sinclair regained his composure and smirked up at her. "So, we're obviously done here, but if you'd like to keep sitting on me, I think I'd be okay with that."

She grunted in disgust and rolled off of him, glaring up at the flickering fluorescents.

"Not bad, princess. Not bad at all," he approved, slowly rising to his feet, stretching the ache from his body. "I think you've actually managed to learn a thing or two."

"Imagine that," she gasped. "It's a miracle with a teacher like you."

He rolled his eyes and helped her up to her feet. "You always ruin the moment. Come on, let's go get lunch."

She winced as her beaten body climbed up to full height. She retrieved her bag from the floor by the elevator and they boarded the elevator, headed for the very tip top of the Lucky 38.

* * *

><p>Leah stepped out into the sun-bathed cocktail lounge, squinting through the glowing rays. It was the first time she'd ever seen the very top of the hotel, and she moved to the windows in excitement. She pressed her hands to the glass, warmed by the sun, and peered down over the Strip below. Sinclair watched with some amusement as she hummed in wonder. When she looked back at him, he waved her over to another side of the lounge.<p>

"Veronica left us lunch," he told her as their footsteps crunched over broken glass and scattered debris. He led her to a section of windows that had been blown out, exposing them to the warm Mojave breeze. Leah sat down on the cool tile and let her legs dangle precariously over the side, giggling from the rush it gave her.

"Careful," Sinclair cautioned, joining her with the basket Veronica had left them. "If you fall to your death, I'm pretty positive that ghoul of yours would enjoy playing soccer with my decapitated head."

"Mmmn, he probably would," she agreed, savoring the mental image.

He pulled a bottle of whiskey out from the basket and shoved the rest toward her, twisting the cap open with a sigh of pleasure.

"I always tell my kids it's important to eat right after a work-out," Leah laughed, picking through the basket. She lifted a strange yellow fruit out and poked along its skin experimentally.

"Banana yucca fruit," he explained at her quizzical expression. "You don't have those in the capital wasteland?"

She shook her head, taking a tiny, hesitant nibble. Deciding she liked it, she took another, more hearty bite. "There's hardly any plant life back home," she said around her food. "Everything there is cold and gray and metal. Everything _here_ is . . ." She gazed thoughtfully out of the windows, over the stretches of sandy desert and blue skies. "Warm," she finished, her voice trailing off.

Sinclair took another swig of whiskey, enjoying the familiar burn as it went down. "You miss it?"

Her fingers grazed the tattoo on her shoulder, and her mind drifted away with thoughts of home. When she broke out of her reverie, she found Sinclair staring expectantly at her. "A little," she finally admitted with a shrug. "It's the only place I've ever known. But it's lovely here, too, and we're here for a reason."

His eyes stayed fixed on her tattoo, and he raised an eyebrow, making it clear he required a little explanation.

"Revelation 21:6," she enlightened him, and his eyes darkened with understanding.

"I didn't peg you for the religious type."

"I'm not, not after the shit I've seen," she agreed. "But my mother was. She died in childbirth, but I think her faith kept her alive to my father. He raised me on that passage. It's all I have left of either of them, so I keep it with me, too."

Sinclair sloshed the whiskey with a shake, smiling coldly. "I always just hit the bottle when I need to remember my parents."

She exhaled sharply, lifting her face to the sun. "I guess we all just need some way to cope."

* * *

><p>It was nearly sundown again when she reached the canyon. She'd been gone for seven days, and it felt good to be home. She did her best to sneak back to her tent, but one of the lookouts took off the instant he spotted her and she sighed dejectedly.<p>

As expected, Regis was waiting for her outside her tent, arms crossed and shoulders rigid with anger.

"I made it back in one piece," she bit out before he even spoke, trying to shove her way past him.

Hazel eyes narrowed furiously as he moved to block her way. "Maybe this time, but what's gonna happen next time you pull a stunt like that? I ought to lock you up at night to keep you from running off again."

Her skin crawled, his aggression getting her adrenaline pumping, the urge to run burning in her legs despite the long journey she'd just come back from. "I got what Papa needed, and I needed no help getting it," she hissed through gritted teeth.

Regis pinched the bridge of his nose, allowing her to slip past him into the shade of her tent. She slammed her bag down and turned to face him, knowing it was not over yet.

"I just don't get why you won't let someone come with you," he said heatedly as he followed her. "There are people here that care about you, Red, you can't just go disappearing in the middle of the night for days at a time. What if something happens to you out there? We'd have no idea where you are or how to help you."

Cold fury was lashing at her insides, begging to be released. She tamed the raging fire, doing her best to stay calm. "I don't need help," she repeated quietly. "I've been on my own before. I know how to take care of myself."

"But you're not on your own anymore," he insisted sharply. "You have a family now, Red. Families look out for each other."

_A family_. The thought sent a chill down her spine. "I won't be anyone's burden."

"Burden? _Burden?_" His exhale cut out in an incredulous breath. He seemed too angry for words, and then his arms dropped to his sides and he moved to leave. He turned at the flap to her tent, hazel eyes dark with emotion. "Sometimes, Red, you're so much like us I forget you weren't born a Khan. And sometimes it's like you're a fucking stranger."

Regis ducked under the flap and disappeared, leaving her alone, feeling empty, feeling wrong . . . feeling like a stranger.

* * *

><p><strong>I want to say thank you, to those of you who are still here hanging on. I'm doing my best to get back into the swing of things. Thank you to all of you who had such kind words to say, even when I was gone for so long. This one's for you. <strong>

**I also want to thank jo7787. Without her, I might never have had the courage to come back to this story. Thank you, for your inspiring words and motivation. **


	8. Reunion

A huff of breath curled between pale lips and materialized in the cold air. She pulled herself up, chin cresting the bar, then dropped herself back down. She did it again, and again, and again, enjoying the strain in her arms. This was her favorite part of the day. In the darkness of a young morning, with the chill of night at her back, she could close her eyes and focus solely on the burn of her muscles, the pain of her determination. Nothing else mattered but finding the strength to pull herself up once again, pushing her body to the limit, testing out the edges of her own power.

"That's twenty, by my count," a voice sounded out behind her, cutting through the tranquility of her morning routine. Eyelids snapped open to reveal the cold blue of a glare as she released the bar and dropped to the ground, her boots stirring up dust. She could feel his eyes on her back as she rolled her shoulders to stretch them.

"What are you doing here, Regis?" she asked without turning around, and her question was not friendly.

He heaved a short sigh, trying to ignore how much he liked the crisp of her slight accent around his name. "Wanted to apologize."

"Why?" she asked, turning and spearing him with that glare he knew too well. "You know we are just going to end up doing the whole song and dance all over again."

"Because it doesn't work," he replied sourly, and he was rewarded with a low, rough laugh.

"I'll give you that," she conceded, pushing choppy, sunset-red hair back from her face. The left side of her scalp was shaved bare, her short red locks sweeping down over her right ear. "Is that what you climbed all the way up here to tell me?"

"Not entirely," he answered, falling into step beside her, headed downward on the trail back for the canyon. "Melissa and the boys just made it back. Since she decided to take a group with her, they made it back in only three days," he informed her pointedly.

She chose to ignore that last statement, smiling at Melissa's return. "Thank you for this news," she said, taking off faster down the trail. Regis watched her go, lamenting how beautiful she looked with a smile on her face. Like scattered puzzle pieces all put back together. It was a shame it happened so rarely; it was a smile that could light up anybody's darkness.

When Regis thought of whatever sick family had been evil enough to abandon her, leave her to crawl her way, half-dead, into Red Rock Canyon, it filled him with rage. He would never forget the sight of her broken body, so weak with malnourishment that they'd assumed she was still a young child. It wasn't until months later, when she started to grow stronger, and the fire returned to her eyes, that she filled out into the furious woman they'd all come to love as one of their own. And when it had come time for her to step into the arena and earn her place among them, she fought, and she bled, and she became a Khan that night.

The sound of a rifle being fired in the canyon echoed up toward him just as the sun crested the horizon, and Regis smirked as the festivities began. With both of Papa Khan's bear cubs home safe, the party would last all day, and knowing how hard some of his fellow Khans could let loose, probably deep into the night as well.

* * *

><p>For the second time in his life, Masnie Sinclair could not sleep. The sheets hugged his hips, bare chest cool in the stagnant air of the old room, his arms tucked behind his head. The muffled sound of Rex's breathing carried up from the foot of the bed, soothing in the silence, and he ruffled the dog's ears absently. He lay still as a board and stared up at the ceiling, the dog's fur soft and warm beneath his hand. His eyes dissected every crack in the ceiling, heartbeat steady in his ears.<p>

For twenty-eight years, he had enjoyed the ease of untroubled sleep, despite any trauma that attempted to force its way into his already over-complicated life. On only one night previously had he been unable to sleep, and it was the night he had lay awake, just as he did now, eyes on the ceiling. His sister had slumbered beside him. Stealing through the dark to gather his things, he stood finally at the doorway and looked at the moonlight spilling in through the front door, illuminating his sister's peaceful face as she slept. And then he slipped through the door. He disappeared that night, and he left his heart behind.

* * *

><p>Leah held the scorching mug gingerly, enjoying the coffee's rich aroma until it was cool enough to drink. "Mmn, thank you, mi amor," she murmured as Lucy placed a plate of brahmin steak in front of her.<p>

"It's no problem," the girl assured her with a matching smile; though it was hardly fair to refer to her as a girl anymore. Through the rigorous activity required to survive in this wasteland, Lucy had shed all of her baby fat, her face thinner, bone structure more pronounced. She wore her hair pinned practically up away from her neck and out of her eyes, which held the gaze of a woman, not a girl. There was no bit of the child she'd first met left in those chocolate brown eyes, and Leah hated that the wasteland had snatched her childhood away, had stolen it so abruptly and cruelly from all of her children's lives, forced them to learn to fight and kill and hide to survive. She had been beyond lucky to get the life she had in the Vault, despite how much she resented it. Her father had ensured she would be safe under his care. The least she could do was the same for these children that she loved.

"Hey, where's mine?" Peter whined, leaning his chair on two legs, his arm slung lazily over the back.

Leah surreptitiously nudged one of the front legs with her foot and Peter cried out, grabbing the table frantically to keep from falling over the back of his chair. She snorted with laughter when he sent her a scathing scowl.

Lucy laughed under her breath as she poured herself a mug. "Leah's going out on an important trip today. She needs the energy more."

The Hero of the Wastes stuck her tongue out at the teenager, who told her to go fuck herself with a laugh. Lucy chuckled at their childishness and took a seat with her own cup of coffee, rubbing her tired eyes.

Charon appeared in the doorway, hair still wet from a shower, his fingers looped through the plates of his armor. He chucked those aside in favor of brushing a fingertip across his smoothskin's cheekbone before stealing a drink of her coffee. He made a face and put the mug back down. Too sweet, like always. Damn woman could be tough as nails when she wanted to be, but she had the most wicked sweet tooth.

"Eclair got up early to pack you a lunch, Pops," Peter informed him, retrieving the bag from the dilapidated refrigerator.

Charon snatched the bag from his hands with a scowl. "I am not a child who needs to be coddled."

"Your kids love you," Leah admonished evenly, her fingers brushing his forearm. "Let them show you every now and then."

"Most of us anyways," Peter added with a crooked grin. "When are you guys leaving?"

"Now, if you've finished lounging about," he said to Leah, who downed the rest of her coffee and got to her feet.

"The Courier's probably not ready yet, but waking him up early is becoming one of my favorite hobbies, so let's go." She turned and brushed a lock of dark hair behind Lucy's ear with a smile. "Thanks for everything, sweetheart. Mommy and Daddy will be home soon."

Charon stomped out of the room, pulling his armor on over his shirt. The girls shared a conspiratorial smile before Leah followed after her ghoul. She caught up to him in the hallway, where he had gathered their things. He held her bag up and she slid her arms through the straps, adjusting it until it was comfortable on her back.

He jabbed the down button and they heard the rumble of the elevator ascending to their level. "Are you nervous?" she asked in a low voice, not looking up at him.

Charon did not answer right away, until he finally rasped, "I just wish I knew what we were getting ourselves into."

"I'm getting the sense that's going to be the theme of our entire time here."

"I don't like it."

"Me neither."

The elevator arrived, and he gestured her in first before following after. They stood side-by-side in the small space, in a soft sort of silence as they drifted slowly downward. His fingertips found hers, and their hands laced together.

A small smile touched her lips and she bumped their clasped hands against his hip. "I think we've got this. I think we've got today, and we've got tomorrow, and we've got the rest of our lives."

He allowed himself a brief smile as well, and he knew he must be crazy, because he absolutely believed her.

* * *

><p>Melissa lounged back on her barstool, enjoying the flame of whiskey in her throat. The long-tent was filled with hustling people, the clinking of glasses, an ambient heat that settled in from the Mojave morning. The tinkle of glass-on-glass had her glancing over her shoulder to see Jessup refilling her cup with a wink.<p>

"You did good. You earned it."

She palmed the drink and tossed it back. She slammed the glass back down onto the counter and laughed, feeling like a flower finally showered with the rain of spring after a long and lonely winter. The sound of a guitar kicking out a familiar chord filtered through the chatter, and a cheer went through the crowd.

"Jack fuckin' loves this song," Jessup grumbled behind her. "I swear I know every fuckin' word by now."

Melissa smiled indulgently. "That chem-head brings in half our money. Let him have his fun."

"Come on, Diane, lay me down a beat!" Jack was shouting with a wild grin as he strummed out the tune. The blonde rolled her eyes, but began to slap her hands between her knees on the old whiskey barrel she perched on.

Jack's laughter was booming before he began to sing. "_The warden threw a party in the county jail, the prison band was there and they began to wail!_"

Khans stood up from their tables and benches, reaching for partners indiscriminately. Melissa snorted, watching her family try to dance through various states of being drunk and high. The tent flap opened, the blinding sunlight illuminating the haze of smoke and dust within. Red ducked into the yurt and scanned the room before making a beeline for her.

Red swung up onto the adjacent barstool and leaned in close to be heard over the music and raucous laughter. "Welcome home. Good to see you made it back okay."

"Always," Melissa promised, and the redhead smiled at the sound of her familiar accent. "I gotcha somethin', while I was out. Jessup!" she barked, snapping at him over her shoulder.

She heard him mutter all sorts of curses as he opened the refrigerator, but the cool glass was placed into her waiting hand nonetheless. She shoved the bottle of Nuka-Cola at her friend with a proud smile.

Warmth touched the ice blue of Red's eyes as she cupped the bottle in her hands, and one of her rare smiles quirked up the end of her lips. "Thank you."

"Knew you liked 'em is all," Melissa replied with a flippant shrug. "Could add whiskey to it, make it a whole lot more interesting."

Red flushed at the suggestion, shaking her head. "You know me better than that."

"This celebration is for you, too, you know, not just me. Everybody else is getting drunk here for us. You might as well join in. No one will judge you."

The girl's smile had disappeared completely to wherever it was that her smiles went to, her lips now a tight, uncomfortable line. "The answer is no, Mel."

It was then that Papa Khan and Karl stepped into the tent, Regis not far behind. His eyes were drawn to Red immediately before he quickly looked away. Melissa watched Red cross her arms stubbornly over her chest out of the corner of her eye and sighed heavily. Seven years the strange girl had been part of their family, and still Regis could not handle his attraction to her, and Red could not even begin to deal with how that attraction made her feel. It drove Melissa nuts, watching those two fumble back and forth like two deaf people trying to find each other in the dark.

"Papa's in the house, everybody!" Jack sang, still strumming away on his guitar. The Khans all broke from their dancing and cheered as their leader grabbed Melissa and Red and pulled them to their feet. His big hands fell on their shoulders as he addressed the crowd.

"It is our strength, our loyalty, our hard work that makes us Khans so Great. Together, we are unstoppable. Our alliance with the Legion will restore us to our former glory, and the NCR will tremble in its boots at the mere mention of our name!"

Cheers rocked the crowd of Khans. Red felt a gaze creeping up the back of her skull and threw a glance over her shoulder to meet the cold stare of Karl, his eyes unwavering on her. A cruel smile twisted over his lips when they made eye contact. A chill sprinted down her spine and she turned away, her nerves frayed as she felt his gaze on her still.

"But that's enough from me; today is not my day. Somebody come dance with these lovely cubs and get me a drink, for the party is only beginning."

Jack started up another song and Jessup grabbed Melissa by the arm and towed her into the ring of dancing bodies. Regis got to his feet from a barstool and held his hand out to Red, a brow cocked as if challenging her to make a scene. She placed her hand reluctantly in his, and he laughed, swinging her close to his body. The music swelled around them once more, and they began to dance.

* * *

><p>Sinclair eyed the hulking machine distrustfully, grimacing when the great propellers began to whirl, stirring up a heavy wind.<p>

"Come on!" Leah called, poking her head out from the door with an excited grin, her hair whipping about her face from the force of the propellers. "Get in!"

"Doll, from where I'm standing, that thing looks like a fucking deathtrap!" he shouted back.

"That's because it _is_ a deathtrap!" the Lone Wanderer laughed at him. "Come on, don't tell me you're scared."

Sinclair's dark brows knitted together indignantly. He would allow himself a certain amount of caution, but he would most definitely not be mocked for it. He stormed under the beating propellers and hauled himself up into the vertibird. "Of course not," he snapped at her as she slid the door closed behind him. "Forgive me if I don't feel comfortable prancing into a big metal cazador and letting myself get whisked away to wherever you feel like taking me."

Desmond snorted derisively from where he sat buckled comfortably in one of the seats, a magazine propped open on his lap. He could have been sunbathing on the beach for all the distress he showed.

"Seriously, what the fuck is a cazador?" Leah complained.

"Trust me, you'll be lucky if you never meet one."

"Are we ready to go?" Charon asked from the cockpit.

"As I'll ever be," Sinclair replied dryly, buckling himself into a seat.

Leah clambered into the cockpit with a laugh at their nervous passenger. "Big, bad Courier's afraid of the big scary vertibird."

"I heard that!" his irritated voice drawled from the back, "And in case my tone is not obvious enough, go fuck yourself."

"It's so nice to be here, making friends," she said over him conversationally to her ghoul, who chuckled darkly. He flipped a few switches and then his big hand curled around the twistgrip, the other steady on the cyclic, and they rose into the air.

"Maybe you shouldn't goad him," Charon suggested with a smirk.

She inspected her nails, lifting her amused gaze to meet his. "Pretty sure you told me the same thing about yourself once."

"And you should have listened to me then, too."

"Probably," she agreed, laughing. "But look at how far it's gotten me." She gestured grandly out the window, at the sprawling stretch of desert flying beneath them, reds and golds and orange, lit up like fire beneath the burning sun. His eyes traced her profile, silhouetted against the bright sky, and he was glad she'd been such a pain in the ass, yammering away at him and smiling all the goddamn time. She still did that, he supposed, as she prattled on about how sun-burnt she was getting out here and flashed him a crooked grin, her fingers twisting through a strand of her hair.

Sinclair watched the massive ghoul turn ga-ga like an oversized puppy and huffed incredulously. It was insane what a pretty broad could do with a bat of her long lashes. She had that six-foot-five behemoth practically chained to her belt.

"Sickening, isn't it?" Desmond piped up in a bored tone. "I thought it was bad when they kept me up with their barbaric lovemaking." He glanced up to see Charon touch her shoulder, and she kissed his hand, giggling softly. The bespectacled ghoul sneered in disgust. "They've only gotten worse."

Sinclair leaned forward in interest, the plates of his metal armor clicking against each other. "Hey, did you get to see her naked? Is she as fit as I think she is?"

Desmond chuckled enigmatically, returning his gaze to his magazine. "Oh, she's a delight, you can be sure."

"Hmph." The Courier scowled, kicking his long legs up onto the opposite seat. He slid a pair of sunglasses on over his eyes and crossed his arms. "Don't suppose you brought anything to drink?"

The ghoul speared him with an exasperated glare, sharp and judgmental through his glasses. "Don't be a moron," he snapped harshly. Then he reached into his pack and tossed a bottle of whiskey at Sinclair, who caught it skillfully and stroked the bottle with a loving caress. "Of course I brought something to drink."

"Well, thank god for you," Sinclair sighed, taking a long drink from the bottle. "Because I am going to need it."

* * *

><p>Red perched on the inner plateau of Red Rock, watching the others down below. Melissa and Diane were side-by-side, their feet dangling up in the air as they competed to see who could hold a handstand longer. Jack playfully nudged Melissa's hip, but she corrected her balance and threw a kick his way, knocking him onto his ass. Everyone erupted in laughter and the two girls fell over into the dirt in a tangle of limbs, too hysteric to get back up.<p>

"I'm proud of you, cub."

Red peered up to see Papa Khan standing above her, looking out over the canyon at their family. "Thanks, Papa," she muttered quietly, pulling her knees up to her chest. They sat together in amicable silence until the girl spotted Karl stepping into the longhouse. He threw her that same languid, taunting smile before he disappeared.

The question pulled itself from her mouth before she could stop it. "Are you certain we should ally with the Legion, Papa?"

His great, dark brows knitted together, eyes darkening disapprovingly. "What has made you question this, little one?"

"It's . . . they're . . . I just. . . ." Her words failed her, and all she could see was that unnerving smile, those predatory eyes. "I don't trust them," she finished lamely.

"Rightfully so," he permitted in a grave voice. "The Khans should trust none but themselves. But the Legion are simply a means to an end, my cub. When we have reached our former greatness, we will have need for them no longer."

Red opened her mouth to protest once more, but Papa put a firm hand on her shoulder, silencing her. "Know my wisdom, and trust in my decisions. I'll speak of it no more."

She nodded, blue eyes downcast, and she said not a word more about it. A pale figure running back into the canyon caught her attention, and she squinted to confirm her suspicions. "Jerry's back," she said with surprise. "Wasn't he supposed to be out training today?"

"He was," Papa Khan agreed sternly. "That boy had better not be back until he's ready to throw himself into the arena."

Jerry reached the ring where the others were strewn about, lounging like sated lions in the sun. He held himself up on his knees and panted something out to them before collapsing against one of the fence posts, gasping for breath.

Melissa was up on her feet in a moment, coming in their direction. "Papa!" she called, her voice echoing around valley. "We got strangers in the canyon!"

Papa cursed under his breath, helping Red to stand. "So much for a day of celebration."

Red's eyes sparkled with the promise of violence. "I don't mind the interruption," she said, malice in the curl of her voice.

The Khan leader snorted down at their little predator. "Of course you don't. But you've done enough. Melissa will deal with this. Go, relax, celebrate with the others."

She looked ready to argue, but his tone was final, so she retreated fitfully to her tent, shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Melissa was nearly fidgeting with excitement when Papa Khan reached her. "Come on, Papa, you can let me handle this all on my own. I'll gladly greet our visitors."

He held up a hand to quiet her and beckoned Jerry over. "What did you see?"

"I was up on the ridge - you know, training - and I see these people come around the corner. Four of 'em is all I saw. They were too far away for me to tell who, but I figured I'd better come back to camp and let you guys know, give us time to head them off."

Papa Khan stroked his dark beard pensively for a moment before turning to Melissa and gesturing up at the edges of the canyon. "Get Jessup and Sam up along the ridge with their rifles, just in case it's somebody trying something funny. Then I want you and Diane to go investigate. Can you do that for me?"

"Gladly," Melissa agreed with relish, heading off to fetch the others.

"Melissa. Wait."

She turned, fire dancing in her eyes. "Yeah, Papa?"

"See what these outsiders want first, before you take action. We must always be ready to kill in our defense, but we are not savages."

Her nose wrinkled in disappointment, but she nodded faithfully. "You got it, Papa. We'll handle this."

"I know it, my cub," Papa Khan agreed sagely, waving her off with a broad hand. "Go, and make me proud."

* * *

><p>"I feel like a goddamn idiot."<p>

"You look like one, too," Leah replied, earning her a mouthful of accented curses. "Hey, we agreed on this plan, Lockheart!"

"More like 'went along with it given there were no better options,'" he grumbled acridly. "This bloody pistol stuffed down my backside won't do much good against a pack of rabid savages."

The Lone Wanderer glowered disapprovingly, but she had to admit her nerves were on edge as well. She was wearing leather armor, and her only weapons were a rifle strapped to her back and a blade in a sheath above her boot. It could have been a sundress and a parasol for all the protection she felt it gave her. Charon and his shotgun were beside her, looking equally as uncertain. She would feel more at ease if the Courier hadn't been quiet the entire time, walking like a zombie, his eyes straight ahead at their destination. He hadn't said a thing since they ditched the vertibird, and from a chatty motherfucker like him, silence was a little unnerving.

The dirt had turned to bronze rock under their feet, crumbling and baked beneath the sun. Through the heat waves rolling off in the distance, they could just make out the sight of two people waiting for them within the canyon.

"Fantastic," Desmond sighed. "We've already got a welcoming party. Here's hoping they don't shoot us full of holes the moment we step inside that bloody canyon."

"Just let me do the talking," Leah insisted firmly. "I don't trust you not to get us killed with that dry British cynicism."

"By all means, charm away. You did well with the last mindless tribals we encountered. Perhaps you can even make it two for two."

Charon put a hand on her shoulder, and his wordless encouragement helped, it really did. But she couldn't shake off the feeling that they were walking into their deaths, and goddamn it, she would really feel stupid if their journey here was ended so abruptly. She hadn't gotten even a step closer to finding the Brotherhood. She was operating off of blind faith, and she felt like she was standing on the edge of a precipice, staring down into the darkness below.

"That's close enough!" the blonde Khan shouted at them, a rifle to her shoulder and pointed directly at them. "Not another step."

"We've got snipers on the ridges, and a whole camp full of others, so I wouldn't try anythin' funny if I were you," the woman beside her called in a heavy accent.

Leah held her arms out at her sides and looked them in the eye. "We're not here to cause any trouble. We're just looking for somebody we lost, that's all."

The olive-skinned, accented woman took them all in through narrowed, distrustful eyes, before she lowered her weapon and motioned for the other to do so as well. "Who exactly would you be looking for, outsiders?"

Sinclair took a step forward, startling them into raising their guns again and he held his hands up immediately in innocence. "Her name is Niella, but she goes by the name of Red."

Something clicked in the Khan's face, which twisted into an expression of deep loathing. Her finger twitched toward the trigger of her gun, which was pointed only at Sinclair now. "If you've come here to cause more damage than you already have, you can turn right around and get the fuck out before I kill you right now."

The blonde seemed confused by her sudden ferocity, but she was right there with her. "We'll enjoy it, too," she promised with a wicked grin.

"Please, that won't be necessary," Leah promised, holding her arms out in front of the Courier protectively. "We're not here to hurt _anybody_. We just want to speak with her."

"No," the Khan growled furiously. "You haven't earned the right to."

Everything seemed to fall in place in Leah's mind, and the realization dawned on her, quickly followed by a wave of dread and fear. She looked over at Sinclair, who was staring at her with an apology in his eyes, and their next move was now so apparent she wondered why she hadn't seen it before. She was pissed about it, and Charon was going to be furious, but she knew it was their only chance of finding the Courier's sister. A sigh tumbled from her lips and she straightened her shoulders determinedly.

"Let me try, then," she called to the woman with the mohawk, feeling Charon stiffen beside her in shock.

The Khan lifted a dark brow and cocked her head to the side as if to see Leah from a different angle. Then an excited smile graced her lips. "You really mean it, don't you?

"Leah -," Charon began, a muted and livid snarl in his throat.

"I do," she called over her ghoul, her voice confident while her stomach twisted into anxious knots.

"Well, right this way, then," the woman sang cheerfully, gesturing the group after her.

Charon's big hand wrapped around Leah's bicep, pulling her toward him. "You never told me this is what you intended to do."

"I hadn't known," she hissed back, piercing Sinclair with a heated glare. "Not until just now."

"You should not do this. You've heard how brutal these people are," he seethed.

"I know," she whispered, a waver touching her voice. "But if this is our only shot, I'm going to do what I have to. We came here for a reason, and we're not leaving until we're done." Her fingers found his cheek, soft and gentle. "Today, tomorrow, and the rest of our lives," she promised.

Her ghoul was enraged, but he silently followed her and the rest of the group into the center of the canyon. Khans stared down at them from the rocks overhead, eyes full of mistrust.

Charon's hands were balled into tight fists as he restrained the urge to throttle Sinclair, who was scanning the crowds of people meticulously, eyes flashing from face to face, disappointment growing after each one.

"Look, I know you're mad," he muttered to the ghoul under his breath as they stepped up to an arena in the middle of the canyon. "But trust in her decision, and her strength. I made sure she was ready for this."

"You should stop speaking, before I hit you," Charon advised coldly, and Sinclair fell silent. The woman was in the ring, pulling on a pair of leather gloves and flexing her fingers experimentally beneath the fabric. A crowd had gathered by now and looked on with expectant chatter. The ghoul yanked Leah up against him and pressed a kiss hard to her lips, his hand tangling in her hair. When she pulled away, there was a sparkle of bloodlust in her eyes. "Fuck her up, smoothskin," he rasped with a rolling fury in his voice.

Her mouth stretched into a nervous grin and she nodded, kissing him one last time before she stepped into the arena. The mohawked woman smiled tauntingly as she stretched her arms above her head. "Name's Melissa, in case you ever want to tell people later who it was that crippled you."

"Thanks, Melissa, but that won't be necessary," Leah reassured her with a bloodthirsty smirk. She thought of home, of the Brotherhood that she had fought beside, of the Enclave she had slaughtered, the raiders she'd killed, the countless lives she had snuffed out and otherwise irrevocably changed, and next to all of that nonsense, this woman seemed so small as to be insignificant. Leah exhaled slowly, set her shoulders, and beckoned Melissa on.

The Khan came flying at her like a speed train, all flying fists and fury. The crowd went wild in excitement, cheering and calling as Leah dodged and parried all of her attacks, trying to exhaust her before she went on the offensive. Melissa knew this, it was plain in her effortless laugh, and she led a hit upward toward Leah's face. The Lone Wanderer moved to block it, leaving her stomach exposed, and the Khan drove a knee up into the vulnerable area. Leah gasped for breath, falling away and barely ducking under another vicious swing. The surrounding Khans howled exhilarated shouts, and Leah straightened, blood boiling with rage. She leapt away from the next incoming hit and swept the legs out from under Melissa, a move Sinclair had used so many times on her that she still had a bruise on her hip from it. She made to tackle the downed Khan, but she lifted a boot and kicked her away, quickly leaping back up to her feet. In the next moment, Melissa had a grip on her hair and jerked her head back, Leah letting out a guttural screech of pain. She elbowed the Khan in the face and writhed free of her grasp. A strong arm looped around her neck, yanking her up to her feet in a headlock. Leah gasped for breath, her eyes meeting Charon's in a fit of panic as the canyon erupted in cheers.

"Move!" he hollered at her. "Goddamn it, Leah, fucking move!"

Leah shoved herself backwards as hard as she could and slammed Melissa into a fence post, the sharp edge digging into her back. She recoiled from the pain and her grip loosened enough for Leah to shove her right arm back and push herself free. The Hero of the Wastes grabbed her attacker and threw her down into the dirt, landing atop her and getting a few punches in before the Khan could regain her focus. She rolled them over, and her fists were unforgiving as they found Leah's face, once, twice, three times, until the girl managed to buck her off and roll away.

Leah spat blood from her mouth, knowing her nose was broken. All of the playful pretenses were gone from Melissa's body language now, and she was out for blood. The thrill of the fight was driving the Great Khans wild all around them as they squared off once again.

* * *

><p>Red looked up from the book Regis had leant her, distracted for the final time by her unruly family's uncontrollable clamor outside. She got to her feet and crossed to the tent flap, ducking under it into the open air. It seemed there was a fight going on in the arena down below, bodies in black vests surrounding the ring. She could make out Melissa on the ground, her legs locked with another woman's as they struggled for the upper hand. The girl was messy, but she put her heart into it, and it was keeping her toe-to-toe with one of their toughest fighters.<p>

She felt a gaze hot on her face, and she inspected the throng of people until she found blue eyes identical to hers staring out at her from the crowd. Her breath caught in her throat as she went cold all over.

"Hey, Red."

She jumped when a hand touched her shoulder, shattering her trance and frightening her into motion.

Regis flinched back, apologizing under his breath. "Sorry, Red, I didn't mean to scare you - where are you going?!" he demanded as she took off for the arena. She slid over the edge of the plateau, her boots skidding down through rock and dirt. She pushed fellow Khans out of the way and fought her way to the edge of the arena, looking down into the ring where the two women were still interlocked.

"Stop!" she cried, her voice ringing out loud and strong over the cheering and applause. The whole canyon fell silent as Melissa and the woman looked up at her in confusion, falling apart from each other.

"Red," Melissa said, getting to her feet. "These people wanted to see you, but I -,"

The girl didn't even hear her. She stepped through the broken slats of the fence and marched across the arena, the eyes of her family all on her, and she saw none of them.

Sinclair stepped out from behind Desmond and Charon, a world of emotion heady in his expression. "Niella," he said, and his voice was so quiet. "_Meine Schwester_ -,"

And his sister hauled and slapped him across the face, her face twisted up in rage. "How dare you!" she shrieked, shoving him away from her as he clapped a hand to his stinging cheek. "How fucking dare you . . . All these years . . . and you show up _now_!"

Sinclair stared down at his little sister and a smile almost crept onto his face, because it had been eight years since he had seen her and she still couldn't put a sentence together to save her own life.

"And who do you have fighting your battles for you now?!" she demanded, swinging a hand to point at Leah, who Charon was helping carefully to her feet. "While you stand here untouched. _Schwein_." She spat the insult with venom in her voice.

Regis stepped out of the crowd and stood protectively behind her. "Who is this, Red, and what the fuck does he want with you?"

The younger Sinclair was shaking with rage and shock, unable to tear her eyes from the man standing before her. "This is my brother Masnie Sinclair, and he was just about to leave and never come back." She smiled, and the expression held no mirth. "It's what he does best."

* * *

><p><strong>kogouma, Chisu-chan, and whoever it was that left me such a lovely comment as a guest: thank you, really. I was nervous uploading the last chapter, but I feel like I'm getting back into things, and your support is very, very much appreciated. A thousand internet hugs to anyone who's still even reading at this point. You're the best. Seriously. <strong>

**jo7787: It's good to be back. **


	9. Reunion 2

Sinclair couldn't say that his sister's reaction surprised him. He _had_ left her behind, but it wasn't because he'd wanted to, and it wasn't as if he'd left her passed out in a gas station bathroom somewhere. After that very long and difficult year they spent together braving the wastes, he finally managed to find his sister a good home, with a good family that could care for her in the right way. And he would have stayed. It felt like he was leaving half of himself behind that night, but supporting a family in this shithole of a world was already difficult enough. They didn't need the burden of two mouths to feed. If he left, their lives would be that much easier.

It hadn't exactly been a picnic either. He'd been twenty years old and never more alone, and the Mojave stared him down, shook his reserve with her uninhabitable deserts and her merciless, rabid children. It was a miracle he'd made it to the Strip on his own, but he walked away all the stronger for it. After such a cruel initiation into adulthood, he found a much more welcoming home among the lights and the glamour, where he realized his easy smile and his smooth voice and his charming wit were tools just as valuable as the guns that had kept him alive in the wastes. Eight long years, he had toiled and persuaded and fought to get to this point.

So, no, he was most certainly not planning on leaving and never coming back.

"I'm afraid not, baby sister," he informed Niella with a careless shrug, as if there was really nothing she could do about it. "Once was enough for me. I don't intend to leave this . . . charming place without you. Whether that's walking at my side or thrown over my shoulder, I don't much care. That part's really up to you."

He could see shock temporarily erase the anger from the lines of her face, and it was like this, her eyes the size of the moon, lips parted in delicate surprise, that he began to recognize his little sister in the strange woman that stood before him. It was a relief to see that girl he once knew was still in there somewhere.

* * *

><p>Far too long had passed since Niella had found herself looking into those eyes last. She was tall, taller than most other female Khans, and yet her brother had always been taller, and that sapphire gaze on her was like a fissure in time. She was abruptly once more a little girl, hiding beneath her brother's arms on the cold, splintered floorboards as a dust storm howled by outside, clawing at the walls and shutters. She was sobbing on the bedroom floor before him as he ripped one of their mother's lovers off of her, twisting his neck between his hands, and taking his first life that night. She was sprinting as fast as her legs could carry her despite how her feet sank into the sand, her brother close behind her, shouting for her to run as the hiss of radscorpions sounded behind them.<p>

Those blue eyes they shared had seen many horrible things together, and now, after so long apart, the reigniting of that bond left her feeling simultaneously helpless and yet very safe, ice cold and burning heat. It was a strange combination, and the fact that he was subjecting her to this emotional torment after so long was infuriating. She wanted to scream her voice raw, wanted to push and punch and fight until she felt nothing anymore, just like she had been doing for so long now. She wanted to run, and keep running, until her muscles shrieked in protest and she collapsed into the dirt. And yet. . . .

The strange woman that had accompanied her brother was getting up now, watching her from the middle of the arena. Niella wondered if she had ever met this woman in the past; her swollen, bruised face made potentially recognizing her impossible, though Niella had never been good with faces anyways. The larger ghoul helped the woman to her feet, where she momentarily swayed before setting her shoulders and limping closer. Niella scanned the smaller woman, searching desperately for any sort of clue as to who she was or what the hell she wanted with her.

Her one still good eye shone deep blue pansy as it fixed upon Niella. The parts of her face that remained untouched were bronzed from the Mojave sun, and blotches of red on her high cheekbones indicated she had a hard time protecting her pale skin from the harsh UV rays. Dark hair was pulled back from her face in a tight bun, almost military it seemed, but the red polish that stained her fingernails stated otherwise. She was nearly dwarfed in size by the ghoul lurking behind her, yet she didn't seem wary of him - quite the opposite. Long, thin fingers brushed his knuckles as if taking comfort from the brief touch. Her leather armor was dirty and creased, but the blade at her hip was spotless, impeccably cared for. The woman drew herself up as well as she could with her injuries and turned to spear Sinclair with a scowl over her shoulder.

Everything about her was confusing. But what she said next was even more so.

"Shut up."

She said it curtly, as if he were an annoying child, not a full-grown man bringing a storm of chaos back into Niella's otherwise simple life. A shadow of anger passed over her brother's face before his gaze flickered to Niella, irritatingly watching her expression for her reaction. She pointedly ignored him.

The little woman turned back to Niella and appealed to her - she couldn't fucking believe it - with a wide smile. It looked like it caused her pain to twist her injured face around, but it appeared no less genuine for it. "I know I didn't get to finish getting my ass kicked by your friend. Thanks for that, by the way," she added to Melissa, who was lurking curiously off to the side. "But I'm willing to let her beat on me for a few more minutes if that'll earn me a moment of your time."

Her tone was light, almost playful, but she let the words stand as they were, and Niella realized she was entirely serious. If she wished, the woman would throw herself back into the arena at Melissa's mercy. Melissa had really done a number on her, and yet she would subject herself to it again just so speak with her. That was . . . interesting. And unsettling.

"Red?" Regis' voice, that low gravelly rumble somewhere close behind her. "Do you want me to take care of them?" A threat was strung like wire in the undercurrent of his voice.

"No." The word came out before she even really considered it, though as she spoke it she knew she believed it. "No, I can handle them."

His responding anger was like heat at her back, but that wasn't her problem. If he wanted to get all upset and flustered, that was his prerogative. She wasn't going to let it change her mind, though.

"I think . . . I think that you have done enough," she decided slowly. "You fought like one of us. That's . . . admirable. I will hear you out."

A smile overtook the strange woman's face, like the sun emerging from behind storm clouds. It was as if Niella had just given her the best gift she'd ever received. "Thank you," she breathed with relief in her voice. "Thank you so much."

Niella noticed now all of her fellow Khans, nosily bunched around the small group they had formed, looking on with no attempt to hide their curiosity and, in some cases, their distrust. "You can all go now," she told them icily. "The spectacle is over."

A murmur of protest went through the group, but Melissa, confident that Niella was not in any danger, started shooing them away. "You heard the lady, show's over. She's got everything under control." Her dark hand found Regis' shoulder, attempting to pull from Niella's side. He shrugged her violently off, but acquiesced and strode angrily away.

"This isn't the place to talk," Niella said, drawing the woman's attention back to her. She'd been eyeing their little family in interest, Melissa in particular. "We can go to my tent."

The stranger took a large pack from the ghoul and slung it onto her shoulder. "Please, lead the way."

Masnie made as if to follow them and Niella hissed furiously. "I didn't see you fighting in that arena," she bit out. "You will not be joining us."

"That would have hardly been a fair fight," he protested.

"You're lucky I don't make you wait outside the canyon with the radscorpions. It's been eight years. You can wait a little longer."

The woman made a small choked sound and pressed her lips together. Niella realized she was stifling laughter. She immediately felt a little warmer toward her. The woman's expression smoothed over and she gestured for Niella to lead her. "Just us girls, then. That's fine with me."

* * *

><p>Papa Khan could sense the anger emanating off of Regis before he even drew near. The dust kicked up around his boots as he approached and the swing of his arms was aggressive, tense. The boy was smart, and strong, but that temper of his had always been too intense for him to handle properly.<p>

"How did it go?" he asked the younger Khan, though he very well knew the answer already.

"She's a goddamn idiot," Regis spat. "She's too trusting."

"I would hardly call Red 'trusting,'" Papa Khan countered calmly. "In fact, I always thought she was rather discerning. Thinks before she speaks. It's one of the things I love about her."

The even tones of Papa Khan's voice seemed to be disabling Regis' anger. He sighed heavily, the tension easing out of his shoulders. "You remember how we found her," he said darkly. "What kind of brother lets her get that way and shows up again almost ten years later like nothing happened?"

"Ah, that's her brother, then" Papa Khan murmured thoughtfully, a big hand stroking his great beard. "Well, she doesn't seem to forgive him by any means."

"No, she was more interested in that girl who tangled with Melissa."

"I'd be interested in any woman willing to fight Melissa," Papa Khan chuckled as an afterthought. His laughter faded and he regarded his right-hand man more seriously. "Red has always been the type to sort through these things herself. I trust her to know what she can handle, and when to ask for help."

"I trust her just fine," Regis agreed. "It's him I don't trust. He's got this . . . this darkness. I don't know how else to describe it. Some kind of darkness that we could lose her in."

"She came from that darkness, my son. I think she'll know the way."

* * *

><p>Leah was startled to finally see the Courier's sister. She blamed it somewhat on her romantic side, but she'd been expecting a sweet little thing, golden curls and a girlish wonder in those pretty blue eyes. Instead she got this woman who looked lost in her own body, face thin and scarred, her red hair carelessly chopped out of the way. She was taller than Leah, her body wrapped with a layer of lean, hardened muscle, and though she could tell from the shape of her face and the elegant structure of her bones that the girl had once been beautiful, there was only a shadow of that woman left in the one who was leading her to a tent on the edge of the canyon. There was a certain defiance about her that Leah admired, as if she expected the universe to come down around her at any moment and each step was her way of daring it to try.<p>

"I don't know why you bothered," Niella was saying as she ducked under the tent flap. "No one ever fought any battles to hear what I have to say."

Leah followed her into the tent, sighing in relief as she finally escaped the sun. "I'm happy to be the first."

The Courier's sister stared at her as if sizing her up. Leah allowed her that. She didn't seem threatened by her, at least, but Leah didn't think anyone would be scared of her in her current state. Niella sat with her legs crossed, the coppery dust of Red Rock Canyon clinging to her skin. She didn't seem to notice it.

Leah attempted to follow suit but was met with some resistance from her battered limbs. She winced in embarrassment. "Will that fight still count if I heal my injuries?"

Niella simply waved a hand, still watching her with that unwavering, curious stare.

The Lone Wanderer fished a few stimpaks from her bag and began applying them. The swelling in her face receded and her aching limbs found relief, allowing her to sit down opposite Niella and finally focus on what she was going to say to bring the girl around, instead of struggling to stay up on her feet. She'd been through worse, but she certainly wasn't at her most convincing with half of her face so swollen she couldn't see.

"That's better," she sighed, stretching out her arms and shoulders. "Now. Do you prefer Red? Or can I call you Niella?"

Red brows furrowed above her eyes. She seemed surprised she'd even asked. "I guess . . . I guess Niella's fine." Her eyes finally drifted away from Leah and stared out of the crack between the tent flaps. "The name didn't feel like it fit here, with all the Khans always around me. I never have a moment to myself."

"I know the feeling," Leah agreed. "I spent nineteen years in a vault. Privacy was hard to come by. 'Alone' doesn't have to be bad."

"Hmm," was all she replied.

"My name is Leah," she introduced herself. She extended a hand and, slowly, Niella shook it. "The big guy outside is Charon, and Desmond's the one in the glasses. We've traveled quite the distance to get here."

"Just to find me?" The briefest shadow of confusion crossed Niella's face.

"No," Leah laughed. "No, don't worry. I didn't know who you were until we found Sinclair. We came looking for the Brotherhood of Steel."

The Courier's sister thought that over for a while. "Okay. What does that have to do with me?"

Leah heaved a sigh. "Well, the Brotherhood disappeared a while back, and they're tough to find. We needed help from someone who knew the Mojave well. That person ended up being your brother. But, as you probably could have guessed, he wasn't going to help us out for free. He needed help with something, too."

Niella waited, looking frustrated. "And . . . ?"

"He needed help finding you."

A frown twisted Niella's mouth downward and she snorted derisively. "You shouldn't have bothered."

"I know you're probably pretty pissed at him. I understand." Her voice grew quiet. "I mentioned earlier I grew up in a vault. My dad snuck me in when I was just an infant. He raised me in that shithole until one morning, I woke up and he was gone. No goodbye note, no 'seeya later, good luck, kid,' he was just gone. The overseer was so furious, he had me chased out at gunpoint. I stumbled out into the wastes and to this day, I don't know how I survived. I couldn't understand why he would leave. Maybe he was tired of being a father. Maybe I reminded him too much of my dead mother - my life meant her death, after all. Maybe it was just fatherly obligation keeping him there all those years."

Niella listened silently, no emotional reaction evident in her closed-off expression.

Leah was just happy she was listening. Her sunburnt cheeks blushed even redder with shame. She told Niella how she had finally found her father, after waiting over a year to start looking, and that if she hadn't come along it was possible he might never have been found. She spoke of their emotional reunion, how the look on his face when he saw her had erased all of the doubts, all of the nights spent awake cursing him for leaving her behind. She described their last days together, working tirelessly to finish Project Purity.

"With our help, my dad was able to bring fresh water to the capital wasteland. His work will save lives. Children can drink water without having to take a Rad-X first. That was the reason he left - he had to finish his work. They will remember my father for what he did." A sad smile touched her lips and she looked down at the bronze dirt caked on her boots. "He died protecting his work."

"I'm sorry," Niella offered unexpectedly, drawing Leah's gaze back up to her.

"Me, too," Leah agreed with a slow nod. "I can only hope for such a noble death. My dad died protecting something he loved and believed in. I'm not saying we have gone through the same experience, Niella. I guess I'm not even trying to compare the two. Every person lives their own unique hell in the wastes. I'm just trying to say, from what little I've seen of the Mojave since I've arrived here, it seems like your brother is really trying to make a change for the better, and any idiot with half a brain can see that he's doing it for you."

Niella's face immediately shut down like a brick wall. It was a habit that looked well-practiced, clamping down emotion and shutting it out. Leah understood that well enough. Charon was a master of it. It was a defense mechanism. It was survival.

"That doesn't mean you owe him anything," Leah added quickly. "I don't know the Sinclair that you grew up with. I hardly know the Sinclair that's standing out there in the sun right now. But I like to think I'm a decent judge of character. And it really seems like he misses you. He's so snarky and deflective and sarcastic, but I wish you could have heard him talk about you. It was a side of him I didn't know existed that spoke to us that night."

Niella leaned her cheek against her knees, her eyes unseeing. Leah wondered what memories were going through her mind. "You really meant it when you said you wanted to talk," the girl noted dryly.

Leah laughed. "Yeah, I wasn't kidding. I thought for a while about what I was going to say to you, though, and I meant every word."

Niella cleared her throat, lifting her head. "Why do you want to find the Brotherhood?"

"The Brotherhood of Steel helped me and my father get Project Purity running. They protected it at immense costs. I've fought with them, bled with them. They are doing their best to make sense of the chaos. I want to help."

"You help a lot of people."

Another laugh. "Yeah, that's kind of my thing. Charon says my compassion will be the death of me some day. I'd like to see something make it past him to get to me, though."

Niella placed her hands flat against the dirt and pushed herself up to her feet. Leah scrambled to do the same.

"You've made your case," the Khan said carefully, her face set in grim determination. "I admire how hard you must have fought. By the state Melissa was in, she wasn't the only one to do some damage. Because of this, and . . . what you've told me about your life . . . I will speak to Masnie." She said the name hesitantly, as if unsure how it would sound coming out of her mouth again.

"Thank you," Leah blurted out in relief. "Seriously, thank you. I can't begin to understand how you must feel seeing him again. But I hope speaking to him, even if . . . even if things don't work out, will bring you some sort of closure." She brushed the dust from her armor and lifted the tent flap, squinting into the bright sunshine. "Do you want me to send him in?"

Niella nodded, trying to look confident, but Leah saw the uncertainty in her eyes.

* * *

><p>"Well, this is going swimmingly, isn't it?"<p>

"Shut the fuck up, Lockheart."

"What, am I the only one who feels like a damn idiot standing out here while they have gossip time?"

Charon pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a tired sigh. "Every time you speak I feel like a damn idiot. There's nothing to do but wait."

"There she is," Sinclair hissed, the first time he'd spoken since Leah and his sister disappeared. Leah emerged from the tent in the distance, her eyes assaulted by the harsh sun. She made her way down the path toward them, looking thoughtful.

"How did it go?" the Courier demanded. "Thanks for throwing me out to sea back there, by the way."

"Yeah, exactly like you did to me," she retorted angrily.

"At least I taught you how to swim first."

She rolled her eyes. "You're lucky I talked her down. She's willing to hear you out. Don't fuck this up." She poked a finger into the shoulder of his armor, probably spraining it. "This might be the only chance we get."

The irritation left his face, replaced with a very uncharacteristic uncertainty. It was almost identical to the expression she'd seen moments earlier on his sister's face. "Yeah," he said simply, before turning and walking the way she had come.

"You look better," Charon rasped, and Leah smiled up at him.

"Feelin' a little better, too. I'll be all good once we're back home and I can wash off all this dirt, which has found its way into places you wouldn't even believe."

"Hey," a voice called, and they turned to see Melissa, who was also in a much better state now. "I think you've earned yourself a drink, outsider. You guys can come wait in the longhouse, if you'd like. You look ridiculous standing out here."

Leah glanced up at Niella's tent, where Sinclair was just disappearing beneath the flap. "I suppose they might be a while."

"I'll do anything to get away from this bloody sun," Desmond remarked.

"Worried you'll get too much color, Lockheart?" Leah teased.

"God forbid I ruin my perfect tan."

The three followed Melissa toward the largest tent in the canyon. She gestured them inside and they trailed in, Leah pausing at the entrance to stare up at Niella's tent.

"Good luck, Sinclair," she muttered under her breath.

Melissa hummed in agreement. "Knowing Red . . . He's going to need it."


End file.
